


Maps

by SketchbookThingz



Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Captain America, Fringe, Marvel
Genre: Cortexiphan, F/M, Multi, Smut, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-02-07 19:42:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 37,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1911381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SketchbookThingz/pseuds/SketchbookThingz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and you are partners, and soon become something more. But Loki looks at your relationship as a way to sabotage the Avengers. Can everyone get through this in one piece, as one team? Or has Loki finally succeeded in dismantling the Avengers. </p><p>**This is loosely based on the Movie verse along with some cross over with other Marvel worlds along with slight Fringe references.**<br/>https://www.pinterest.com/sketchbookthing/maps/</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Story was inspired by maroon 5's "Maps". You can play it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj6fHiF8Osg 
> 
> For some reason this came on my spotify playlist, and all I thought about was Bucky, and this story came to life. So I hope you all enjoy it.

"Do it!" Loki hisses at you as your right hand trembles, a hand which holds the gun that is pointed at Buckys chest. Tears sting your eyes, as you finally remember the man standing in front of you with the metal arm. It took you months, but you remember him now.

You remember that you love him. You guys led a life together.

"Do it or you'll never see J.J. again," Loki hisses at you again. The tears are replaced with rage. 

"I said I'd fucking do it," you growl as you cock the gun and take a deep breath. "So I'm going to fucking do it."

As you squeeze the trigger you just hear Bucky say, "It's okay, I understand."

Then, he hits the ground. 

\---1 year ago---

You roll over to turn off the buzzing of the alarm clock that bothers you so. "Shut your infernal racket!" you moan as you slam your fist on the snooze button. 

"Now, now, (your name)," Bucky chuckles as he rolls over and wraps his left arm around your waist pulling you back against him. You both are completely naked, as you always slept for the last year. You had become accustomed to his metal arm, and never flinched when the cold metal touched your skin. You actually enjoyed it. "You know we have to get up. There's new information that Loki might be up to something."

"Ugg, not again." you moan as you let yourself bend to fit the mold that Bucky's body had created. 

He nuzzles against the back of your neck which causes you to become aroused. You always loved the warmth of his breath, and the prickle of his stubble against your skin.  After some light teasing, you get up and begin to get dressed. "That's not fair," Bucky says as he crosses the room towards you, "You can't just tease me, and leave me wanting more."

You smirk as you pull a shirt over your head, and snake into a pair jeans. "You just told me to get up for important news, now you're telling me to go back to bed?" Oh, you knew how to get a rise out of him. With one swift motion he swoops his arm around your waist and pulls you against his hip. "This isn't over." he growled now as he bent down to place a light kiss on your lips.

"I hope not," you say as you nibble on his lip. "I'll see you downstairs." He let out a slight growl as he watches you walk away. This wasn't over, not by a long shot.

After an hour of arguing in the conference room, you decide to sneak away. Everyone had their different opinions. Some wanted to look for and hit Loki hard before he could do anything. Others wanted to wait and get the full details as to get whoever else was conspiring with Loki. What ever argument was brought up, the situation remained the same, no one agreed. 

You took the elevator to the training room and decided to work out until a decision had been made. You were after all just an agent, along with everyone else here who wasn't a mutant, or by some freak accident or experiment, made into some kind of super human. The board was not a place for you, you just took orders. 

After an hour, Natasha walked in. "(Your name), we're briefing everyone soon. You should get ready." 

"A plan has been made?" 

"Yup," Natasha said, "So hurry up." 

You nod, and walk over to the locker room, with a quick shower in mind, after the long sweaty work out you just had. You had just opened your locker to retrieve your towel and clean clothes, when Bucky walked through the doors. 

"Hey babe, Natasha already told me. I'm just taking a quick shower and I'll be up."  Closing the door behind him, he slams his body against your, causing your face and body to slam against the cold metal locker, and you feel a cut on your cheek from the openings in the metal. 

"James," you yelp in sudden anger. "What are you doing?" 

"Shhh." he says into your ear as he begins to pull down your pants and unzip his.

"James, stop. They are expecting us upstairs," you hiss again as he spread your legs. Quickly you realize that he won't stop, so you elbow him in the stomach. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!" you know that it won't hurt him, but you needed to know what the hell he is thinking, and why. 

"Shut up!" he hisses at you as he turns you around and slams your back against the locker, causing the wind to be knocked out of you, and your head to be slammed back with such a force, that you can't see straight. A blow like that wouldn't usually hurt you, especially when you were expecting it in combat. But this was Bucky, and you two were at home, in the tower, in a locker room. Your guard is down, and down her neck you can feel warmth, and know that it's blood. 

"Bucky?" you moan in pain as he begins to wrap your legs around his waist.  As you try to make your world stop spinning, you feel a sudden force between your legs, you hadn't even noticed that he had pulled down his pants, and for the first time in a long time, your feel tears stings your eyes. "Stop please." you whimper, as you quickly go into defense mode and reach up to scratch out his eyes. "What is wrong with you!" you say weakly as your strength had been drained out of you, and your attack leaves him with nothing more than a scratch on his face. 

"Just shut up!" he shouts at you, before punching you in the face. You feel your lip began to bleed, and your eye begin to swell. But he doesn't care and he keeps going at it harder and faster. You keep trying to put your arms up to defend yourself, you try everything, though you know that it won't work, you try to to push him away, or claw at his face. But with the loss of blood and head injury, you don't have the strength to do so.

You had never felt so helpless in your life before, and you knew that this wasn't Bucky. As the assailant reaches his end, he fills you with his seed, and then simply lets you fall onto the floor. "Who are you?" is all you can manage to whimper. He doesn't say anything, but you managed to see a twinkle in his eyes. And you know. You had never met him before, but you know that this is the Loki that everyone had 

"I'll fucking kill you." you groan as you try to move. 

"Oh, just wait, you'll soon see, you and I will soon become best of friends." he simply says as he pulls his pants up, and zips up. When the door opened. 

"Damn it Aspis, did you or did you not hear me say-" It was Natasha , calling you by your code name, who freezes as soon as she sees you on the floor.

"Nat." you moan, just barely clinging to consciousness "It's him." 

Natasha quickly was taken off guard as he punched her in the stomach, kneed her in the face and threw her towards you. Laughing, he quickly makes his way out. 

"Nat," you moan as you try to reach over and make sure that she was still okay. "Nat." But soon your loss of blood and injuries took their toll, and you begin to slip out of consciousness. As soon as you hear Natasha moan, giving some sign of life, your world goes black. 


	2. A week later

The first thing you remember is nothing but pain. In every part of your body, and darkness. When you finally command your eyes to open, you are blinded by white light. "Ugg.." you moan.

"She's awake!" you hear someone say. You then command your body to sit up, but are met with hands of resistance. 

"No, don't not yet," It's Bucky, "You have some IV's hooked into you."

The fact that he's here calms your nerves, and you let yourself lay back down slowly. Blinking quickly, your vision becomes more focused now and you can see you are in one of the rooms in the medical wing of the tower. 

"My head," you groan, but suddenly, now as you fully awaken you begin to feel the pain leave your body. 

Steve then walks in with Simmons, "It's good to see you're up and ready to go again. But give me a moment." she says as she began to rustle through the top drawer of a medical cabinet. "I need to take a blood sample." 

"You didn't take any from me while I was unconscious?" you groan as you begin to sit up. 

"They weren't able to," Steve says as he stands on the other side of you. 

You look at them with confusion. As Simmons walks over with a needle and various drawing tubes, she looks at Steve and Bucky first, as they both nod a yes, before answering you. 

"Well," Simmons starts as she begins to swab your left arm, "When we found you and Natasha in the locker room, there was some sort of force field around you two. We couldn't see it, it was invisible. It was up for an hour before it finally just stopped and we were able to bring you here. But your skin," she said as the needle punctured you and you being to feel a pull under your skin as the blood rushes out and into the tubes. 

"There we go!" she smiled, "Sorry, " she says looking back up at you, "Your skin became like stone, and we couldn't get any kind of sample into you, it actually took us two days to put the IV's into you." 

"Two days?" you ask with bewilderment. 

"Yeah, you've been out for a week." 

You process this information in your head, when you begin to remember what happened. "Natasha!" you say scaring Simmons, almost causing her yank the needle out. 

"She's okay," Steve says. You settle back down into the bed and let her finish.

As she finishes up with the blood samples, she helps take the IV's out. "As soon as you feel up to it, you can head back to your room to rest." She leaves the room with your blood samples, and you look at both Bucky and Steve with raised eyebrows. 

They both looked at you with confusion.  "I'm completely naked under this, if you two will please give me a moment." you say as nice as you can in this situation. 

They both slightly blush as they nod and make their excuses to leave. Once the door shuts behind them, emotions overtake you. You refuse to cry right now, you shake your head, and force yourself up. You have been out for a week. There was some kind of force field around, probably someone's version of a sick joke, and Loki, he-. As you put your pants on, your stomach turns you can't believe that you've been violated in such a way. And as you put your shirt on, you can't hold it in anymore. 

You run to the sink and empty the little contents that are left in your stomach. The door swings open and Bucky comes running in. "Are you okay?" he says and quickly comes to your side, grabbing some paper towels and begins to wipe your face. 

"Umm," you say as you turn the water on and splash some water on your face. "I'm okay, just a bit nauseous. Maybe I should go up to bed."

Bucky nods, "I'll help you up."

"NO!" you say defensively, "I mean, no. It's okay. I can do it."

"Please, let me at least accompany you." he says as you stand up straight and make your way to the door. His eyes shows worry, something that you have never seen before in his eyes. You nod, and he follows. Riding the elevator up to your room, you're both silent.

He feels the need to wrap his arms around you, but you feel the need to be alone. 

Once in the room, you grab some clean clothes, and begin to take your shoes off. "I think I'm going to shower." you say not looking up at Bucky. 

You know it wasn't him who assaulted you. But the fact that his face will forever be associated with that, makes you hate Loki even more, and your stomach turns again. 

"I'll be downstairs, would you like anything to eat?" Bucky asks, and as the words leave his mouth, you suddenly have a craving for french fries. 

"Fries, please." He simply nods, and takes his leave. You get undressed and take a cold shower, being left alone with nothing but your thoughts, the events that led up to this overtake you. You're angry, enraged, you feel stupid for not knowing that it wasn't him from the get go. You punch the tile and you feel the sting of an injury, along with a trickle of blood. And for the first time since you were a child, you let yourself cry. 

You sit at the bottom of the shower, and let yourself cry. As you purge anything else left in your sour stomach.

\--

The next morning, you awake alone. Having asked Bucky for some space, and he obliged. Today seems only slightly better from yesterday. Everything just seems like a blur but inside you know it's all real. As you get dressed, you can't seem to find pants that fit you. You chalk it up to the fries that you ate last night and the IV treatment, and decide to wear your yoga pants out with a tee shirt as you head to the cafeteria. You have a craving for scrambled eggs, and your stomach can't seem to stop doing somersaults. 

As you grab some food and sit at a table to eat, Bucky comes and sits across from you. He doesn't say anything just sits and eats across from you. 

That's what had attracted you to him in first place, he never held a small talk conversation. When ever he talked, it was because he meant what he was going to say, because he had something to say. Between bites of your eggs, you smile at him and simply say, "I'm okay. And thanks." 

He nods. As you both finish eating, you head out to the conference room. This walk makes you smile, you feel normal. 

As you reach the conference room, your stomach turns again. You quickly run looking for a sink, a garbage bag, anything, to keep from vomiting on the floor.  Success! A garbage pail, you quickly bend over it as you empty what you just ate. Bucky stands beside you and runs his hand on your back trying to calm you. 

Just as you were finished, Simmons came running up. "Agent Aspis," she says breathlessly as she stands next to you. "You need to come back to the lab with us."

"What?" you mutter in between the dry heaving after vomiting the eggs that you had for breakfast.

 "Your lab work, it came back."

"So." you snap at her as you let yourself sit next to the garbage pail on the floor. You begin to feel light headed from sudden exit of fluids, and an empty stomach, you begin to see little spots of lights in your vision. You know you are going to faint if you don't take it slow. 

"We ran your blood through every panel known to man, and some things were okay, but you had highly elevated Hcg levels, and -" 

You yell at Simmons with no patience left, feeling an aurora of an impending fainting spell. "What the hell does it all mean!" 

"You're pregnant." is the last thing you hear as darkness takes over you again. 


	3. The After Math

As you awoke up in the medical wing an hour later, you ripped the IV's out and began to storm down the hallway. You are full of anger, and can only find one person to blame. "Stark!" you yell at the top of your lungs, as you walk into the conference room. 

There you find Steve, Stark and Banner, all talking about you. "Well, good to see you're feeling better." Stark says with a snark tone. "What can we do for you." 

You grab whatever is near and begin to throw it at him. "You are the reason I am in this predicament! How the hell did he get past your security into the tower!" 

"Hey!" he says as he puts his arms up to deflect anything coming his way. Banner puts his hands up, "Hey!" Banner yells trying to remain calm as he takes his glasses off. 

Steve quickly makes his way behind you and begins to hold your hands back, but you are so full of rage, you take your strength channel it to your head, and let it back with full force. It meets Steve's nose with a crack, and as soon as his hands leave your arms, to hold his now bleeding nose, you charge across the room. You need to have someone to blame for this. But before you can reach the Tony, Banner grabs you and slams you into the floor. His eyes are green, and you know that he's trying his hardest to keep from turning. "We are here to try to help you!" he snarls. 

You sit up with pain radiating from your neck to your low back. "What do you mean help me?" you merely ask. Steve comes over and hands you his hand to help you up. You take it, and he puts his arm out around your waist, seeing you wince in pain as you try to straighten up. 

"Yes," Steve says, "We're trying to figure out how to help you." 

"Sorry," you say you look at his face. The bleeding from his nose had stopped, but you couldn't help but feel remorse about how you had gone about this. He just nods. 

"We're trying to figure out what to do about your -," Banner looks for the right word to say before saying it, "Pregnancy." 

"What about it?" You ask, as Steve helps you into a chair, but you begin to feel the pain leave your body. You were used to worse in field, that slam was nothing, especially to what you use to deal with in your life before you joined the Avengers. 

"Well, we don't know what Buckaroo's DNA inside of you will do." Tony said.

"It's not Buckys." you quickly say. "And I don't want it."

"How do you know it's not?" Steve asked. 

"Because," you look at your feet, "We always take precautions. We had the same worries so we made sure it wouldn't happen." 

Banner and Tony look at each other, "That changes everything." Banner says. 

"Why, her though?" Tony points at you, Banner and Tony continue their conversation, as if you were not present. You just listen, you want to know what is going on. You were about to ask what they were saying when Steve cleared his throat and hands you his zip up sweater. 

You realize then that you are naked, wearing nothing but the gown that the medical wing put on you, and the back was wide open "Oh," you say gracefully taking it. You put it on, and see blood on the sleeve, and you feel guilt again. "I'm sorry." you say again as you zip it up. 

"It's okay," Steve says again. "Will you like me to take you to your room for some clothes?" 

You pull the bottom of the gown closed and shake your head, "No, I would really prefer to be here." He nods in understanding, "I'll go get you something to eat." 

"Thank you." As he departs, you listen again to the scientists. "That would explain the sudden change in body mechanics," Banner says, "Simmons did say that her skin became stone like." 

Tony agreed, "It's not a trick from Loki, its the fetus protecting itself." 

"Wait!" you decide to interject, "Did you say, it's protecting itself?! This just happened a week ago, I'm not a super genius, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that." 

"That's the thing," Tony says, "It's not a regular child."

"It's a God." Banner says. 

"Well, part God." Tony corrects. "Which brings me back to the original question, why her?" 

You can't seem to hear anything else at this point as they continue to make more theories. How the hell did you end up here? 

You begin to remember that moment 5 years ago. You had been on a contract. Having been raised by spies you knew the way things worked. Besides, they were double agents, only looked out for their best interests, and they taught you everything you knew. But by then you had already been looking out for yourself. 

You were about to kill your target, when it turned out to be a woman in disguise. you had to admit, you was just as good as you, if not better, in combat. The fight would have gone forever until someone showed up with a bow and arrow, you couldn't help but let a laugh out. A bow and arrow, really? You never used guns, they were easily traced, but in that moment you wished you had one. 

Instead of killing you, they sat you down. They told you how they had been tracking you for a year. How they wanted you to be a part of something, a bunch of other people who had a special skills they said. You laughed as you got up from the chair and began to make your way out. When Natasha said it, "Don't you want to be part of a family, Aspis?" 

Quickly crossing the room you punched her, the archer got up and held you back. "Don't you dare call me that!" That was a nickname your mother had given you, the fact that it came out of her mouth angered you. 

"It's okay Clint." she said, and he slowly began to let your arms go. "We know about your parents, your upbringing. We also know they died when you were eight. I can only imagine how you had to survive on your own." 

You were going to charge her again when Clint intervened. "What would you know about it!" you spat at her.  

"Because I too, have red in my ledger." For the next five minutes, she gave you the cliff notes version of her life, and Clint let you go. 

"So," Clint asked you as the three of you sat there. You felt safe with these two people. It scared you. You knew safety and trust were two things you could not do. You looked at both of them, and said "No more following, tell me where, and I'll make my own way there." 

Natasha nodded, "I understand." 

"Aspis." Tony said as he stood in front of you, ripping you back to reality. 

"What?" you say looking up at Banner and Tony. 

"We have to take you back to the medical ward." 

"Why?" 

"We have to do an ultrasound, see how far along it is." Banner said. 

_This is just a nightmare_ you tell yourself as you follow them down the halls back to the room you ran from.  _I'll wake up soon_ you tell yourself as you sit on the bed again.

_Yeah that's it._ You tell yourself as you lay back, and Simmons quirts a cold liquid on you abdomen. 

She turns on a machine, and holds a probe up, as it nears your body, you quickly hold her wrist. You know this isn't a dream, and doing this will make it more real. You are pregnant. Something you never wanted to be. You feel panic in the pit of your stomach. 

You didn't even notice with Steve and Natasha had come in. "It'll be okay." Steve says as he put his hand on your shoulder. Natasha stands on the other side of you and nods. 

"We're doing this together." She says. 

Letting the breathe that you were holding in, out, you let go of Simmons arm. 

"If we're done with the powwow here," Stark said, "We've got bigger things to do." 

You just nod, and Simmons places the probe on your abdomen, applying pressure occasionally. 

"Well," she said as she put the probe back on the machine, handed you a towel to wipe off the gel. "By the looks of this." she pointed to the image one the ultrasound machine, "The length and size of the fetus seems to be that of a three month old fetus." 

"Three months!" you snap at her as you sit up and look at the image, all the sudden all the electrical wiring in the room began to act radically. The lights flickered, the machine began to turn off and on, the sink began to sip water, and all the medical machines were turning themselves on. 

"Calm down!" Banner quickly said as he walked over to you. "It's channeling your emotions." 

You take a deep breath, and slowly everything begins to calm down. 

"Interesting," Tony says taking a look around the room and back at you. 

You quickly push past them all, and go to your room. After getting dressed, you contemplate everything that has transpired. Your instincts and training you had so long ago, tell you to run. That's what you know how to do best. But you've been here for so long, you think you might have gone soft. 

No. Training like that just doesn't disappear. You know you can go back as a free agent. Easily. You begin to pack things when all the sudden you feel a sharp pain in your stomach. "Erg." you say as a minor annoyance, you shake it off and continue packing. 

Bucky walks in, and see's you packing. You're both about to say something when another pain hits again, this time you feel something crack, and clutch your stomach. 

He quickly wraps your arms around his neck for support and helps you up straight. "What's wrong." 

Before you can respond, another crack is heard and this time its loud and even he can hear it. "I don't know." you scream in pain. 

"Can you walk?" 

You put your foot in front of you, and see that you are still able to do that with minimal pain and just nod. He takes you out to the hall, and begins to call everyone's name, anyone.

"Someone!" He growls, "Get those damn scientist up here!" 

A couple minutes later, you're back in that dreaded medical room. You already know that it's one of your ribs that cracked, you don't know why you're back here. But Simmons already has the probe on your abdomen again.

"Oh my," Simmons says. 

"What?" you ask a bit aggravated.  

Just then Bucky walks in with Banner and Tony in tow. "What's going on?" Banner asks. 

"The fetus, it's growing." 

"It's what they do, isn't it." Tony quips. 

"Not like this," Simmons turned the image around so they could see. "An hour ago it was three months old, now its five months." 

You look at the scene, this has to be some cosmic joke. "It's making room for itself, and that's why you're in pain. It's an accelerated pregnancy." Banner says fascinated, as if you were some science fair project. 

"The fuck!" you say you now enraged. "No double check." 

"You need to calm down," Tony says now coming to your side, looking over you at the screen. "Remember what happened last time." 

"I don't give a fuck. Get this thing out of me!" You hiss at them all. The lights begin to flicker. 

"Calm down." Banner says now walking towards you. You take their advice for now, right now they are your only chance out of this predicament. The lights began to glow their normal light, but dimmed slightly from what they were. 

"I'll be calmer, when you get this out of me!" 

 For the next two hours, they got a medical team to help map out the possibilities, but then you felt another crack, and your stomach began to bulge. 

"I think it might be too late." Simmons says as she grabs the machine again. You take a deep breath in as she scans your abdomen again, which you notice is a lot bigger now. "It's as I feared it's seven months now." 

And then a whooshing sound begins to fill the room, everyone including yourself freezes. Looking at the monitor, you finally ask, "What is that?" 

Simmons swallows hard before answering. "The baby's heart beat." 

It has a heart beat. It's protecting itself. It's feeding off your emotions. Your head is spinning, what the fuck happened to your life. Just as you think you're beginning to get a grip on your situation, Banner spoke up. 

"At this rate, she'll give birth by tomorrow night." 

Tomorrow. Night. Birth. 

Panic overtakes you again, it has a heartbeat. It's been trying to protect itself. It's coming out of you tomorrow. Everything fades to you, no one else exists right now. What choices did you have now? A child, just like you once were. The few memories you have with your parents before their murder. You may not want it, but it should at least have a chance to have what you once did. But then you remember whose child this is. 

All the sudden your snapped back to reality as Bucky shakes your shoulders. All the sudden you're back where you were, in the hospital bed, Banner and Tony on one side of the room, eyes wide in surprise. Simmons standing with her back against the wall, eyes just as wide. 

Bucky's hands find your face, and as he gently turns your head to face his, you notice why they are frozen. All the metal objects in the room are floating in the air. The sharp ones are pointed and trained closely at their necks. He says your name gently. 

"You have to calm down. Please. I understand that you're having a tough time with this. But please." 

You shut your eyes and try to block everything out. Every worry. Every thought. You remember the teachings your father taught you. Darkness. Nothingness. You begin to feel a calmness take over you, and only open your eyes when you hear the metal crash onto the floor. 

You slowly open your eyes, Bucky is still in front of your face. You slowly look around, once you make sure that everyone is safe, you jump off the bed and run again. 

You run as far as your feet can take you. As fast as you can.

You. 

Just.

Run. 


	4. Birth

You didn't get very far when another crack was heard, causing you to double over in pain. You looked around you, you were out of Midtown Manhattan and in Chinatown, across the street from you was Columbus Park. You had dealt with pain before in your life, but you nothing in comparison to what you were feeling right now.  Your abdomen stretched out in front of you more prominent now, causing you to roll down the waistband of your pants, and arch your back as you walked across the street. You find an empty park bench to sit on as the life inside you moves around, causing you to freeze and stare at the bulge now attached to you. It's moving. 

You can feel it moving. You lift your shirt and can see a foot print on the top part of the bulge. This is just a bad nightmare, you'll awake soon. You have no idea how long you were sitting there, waiting to awake, when an elder lady passed by. "Is it your first?" she smiles. 

You just look up and nod at her. How do you respond to this. "It's magically isn't it? You're growing a person. I remember how I felt with my first." she says with a smile. There is a pause as if she's waiting for some response, some approval of what she has just said, from you. But you just sit there, staring at her. "Well, take care sweetie." she says as she continues her trek across the park. 

This is surreal. What is wrong with the universe. The sun sinks into the west, and you do not move. You let your head drop back as you pull the shirt down as far as you can, and rest your hands on the bulge. The stars begin to appear one by one, but the congestion of light in the city quickly drowns them out. 

You miss the stars. When your parents were still alive, your safe houses were always out in clearings in Europe, they never left Europe. You never left Europe either.  You remember falling asleep as you tried to count how many stars there were in the sky, as you listened to your parents hushed sounds in the other room, planning their next contract. 

Aspis, they called you. "A code name," your mother said, "So no one will know who we are." 

"What does it mean?" you asked.

"It's short for Vipera Aspis," your father smiled at you over his coffee cup. "It's a venomous viper found in a part of France that your mother and I are from. I'm Cobra, your mother is Copperhead. You're our little Aspis." 

And they were right. You had only been seven at that time, but you had already helped them on various contracts. Luring people under the pretense of being a lost child, into alleys, or other buildings, where they would finish the job. They taught you how to avoid streets and buildings with surveillance. How to case a building or target for surveillance, security details and their flaws. Most of all they had taught you how to survive. At all costs.

Not everything was hiding, running and contracts. You remember the time they took you to Pyrotechnic Festival on the French Rivera and smiled to yourself. An arm suddenly comes down onto your shoulders, causing you to sit up and snap you out of your thoughts. It's Bucky. 

"Was I that easy to track?" you say disappointed in yourself. 

"Well, you are a pregnant woman, running like a mad woman through New York. It didn't take long." 

Pregnant.  That word again. You're pregnant. 

"So you're here to drag me back to the tower?"

"No," he responded softly as he looked off into the distance. "I'm here to run with you." He hands you a bag with your things, the one you were previously packing. "I'm here to do whatever you want. If you want to run, we'll run. If you want to go back, we'll go back. What ever you chose, we're going together." 

You look at him. In a way that you haven't in the last couple of day, realizing now how much you have ignored him. But yet he was still here. You remember when you first went into the field with him for the first time. You were so unsure about working with, the people you were working with. You would call them abominations. But slowly those abominations became your family. 

A smile appears on your lips. "James," you say as you lift your hand towards his face. You and Steve are the only people that ever call him by his name, James. He turns to you. But when you do, the life inside moves again, this time not as fast or hard as before. But still, it makes you move your lifted hand to your stomach. 

"Are you okay?" he asks concerned. 

"Yeah. I think I'm just hungry." He nods. "Come on," you say as you push yourself up off the bench. "There's a place not too far from here that's probably still open." 

As he stands next to you, you realize the sun is coming up. Have you really been sitting at this park, this long? Together ,you begin to walk down the block, you don't even make it to the corner when you hear another crack. 

"Fuck!" you yell out, if the fence wasn't there to hold onto, you would have fallen to the floor. 

He calls your name, as he hooks his right arm under your knees and the other around your low back, and you hook your arms around his neck. "Take me back," you hiss. The pain is lasting longer than usual, and it was stronger than the last as well. 

Without saying a word he begins to run with you in his arms as you groan. Arriving at the front of the tower you yell out in pain again. This time your back begins to convulse.  As you reach the lobby, Jarvis announces to everyone he can find that you are back in. Bucky refuses to let you stand up on your own. "Put me down!" you scream in pain. "James now!" 

He lets your feet down first, not letting his arm around your waist go, as to catch you last minute if you needed it. The pain is too intense you need to do something. Again, your instincts are to run. 

"Simmons!" you scream, "Stark! Banner!" You hunch forward placing both your hands on your bulge, as you do you notice the puddle underneath you now. "Fuck!" you scream as you fall forward, putting your hands in front of you, now on all fours on the floor. 

Bucky kneels next to you, not knowing really what to do in this moment. Simmons emerges from the elevator with Banner. "Oh no," Simmons says as she kneels on the ground next to you, hooking her arms under your shoulders to help you into a sitting position. 

"What?" Bucky growled. 

"She's going into labor." Banner simply says as she begins to open a bag that she had with her. "Simmons, help undress her. Bucky, support her back." 

"No!" you scream as Bucky settles you in between his legs, with you back against him, so you are supported up in a semi sitting up position. "It's not time. I'm not ready!" you shout, but your body screams other wise as you feel every muscle in your body in pain. 

"Aspis!" Natasha says, her and Steve quickly find themselves on either side of you as Simmons pulls your lower half clothes off. 

"Jesus." Natasha said, "Good thing he found you in time." You can tell the concern in her voice is real. She has become rather close to you during your time with them, and even considered you somewhat of a sister. You trained together, you lived together, ate together. You were together all the time, there was no way you weren't going to get attached to the girl you once punched. 

Steve just holds your hand. These three people, you remember how much you despised them when you first showed up. And now, there's no one else you would want here. 

"FUCK!" you yell again, sweat beginning to bead on your body, as another wave of pain overtakes you. You suddenly feel as if there is an impending doom. Almost as if you're going to die.

"It's crowning." Simmons says, as Banner quickly makes his way next to her on the floor to help.

"(Your name)," Banner says calmly, "You're going to have to push."

"No! You lied!" You can barely mutter. "You said night!" 

"I know, I'm sorry. But this is now. And (Your name), you're going to have to push." 

Natasha pushes some hair out your face, she had become, somewhat of a sister to you during your time in the tower. "We'll do this together, come on." She takes your hand into hers, "Now squeeze it, as you push." 

You just nod as you try to breath, and Bucky hands are on either side of your sides, "You can do this." he whispers into your ears,and with that you push. 

"God!" you scream as you finish the push. 

"Good." Simmons says, "Come on, you have to push some more."

"Fuck!" you scream letting you head fall back onto Bucky's shoulder. "I can't." you cry. 

"You can." he simple says back, "You can." 

You look at him, "I'm sorry," you can't hold it in any longer. You know you are going to die. 

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about." he says. "You're almost done. Come on, you heard her, one more push." 

"I love you." you blurt out. He stops and looks into your eyes. "I'm sorry I never told you."  _Love is weakness_  you hear your mother echo in the deep recesses of memories. Love is weakness.

"She's losing a lot of blood." Banner says somewhere below you, but to you it sounds distant. 

"Don't talk like that." Bucky replies. He knows that you would never admit your feelings unless you felt like you were dying. But you began to feel cold, and know that, this is it. 

"He's upside down," Simmons says, "Aspis! You need to push! He's not getting oxygen!" 

It's a boy. It's a boy.  You look back at Bucky one more time, "Promise me, he may not be what I wanted, or how I wanted, but he's still a part of me." 

"Shut up. You'll take care of the brat." he says through a crack in his voice, with a smile. 

"(Your name), " Natasha says as she runs her hand on your cheek. "Everything will be fine. I know you feel like it won't. But it will. Come on. One more push." 

You look back at Bucky, who notes how pale your skin has become, and how sunken your eyes are. 

"This is a massive amount of blood loss, we have to move her!" Banner shouts. 

"Not until the child is out! They could both die." Simmons snaps back.  _Die._ They said it not you. 

"Promise me!" you cry one more time. 

He simply nods his head. You take a deep breath and squeeze Natasha's and Steve's hand with all your might as you lean forward and push again. You can feel the child make his way out, and let yourself fall back. As you do, you feel cold. So cold.

\--

A cry fills the room. The cry of an infant. "Okay," Banner began, "Simmons, take the child to clean up. You two," he said as he pointed at Bucky and Steve, "Help me get her to the med floor. She's going to need a blood trans-"

He's cut off by Natasha suddenly yelling your name out. She noticed how limp your hand was in hers, and began to shake your arm violently. 

Now both Steve, Bucky and Banner began to call your name. But you didn't hear any of it. You were gone. 

"Wake up!" Bucky says as he shakes you. He takes a scoot back to let your body rest on his lap. He strokes his hand on your face. "Wake up. Please." 

But it's no use right now. You're gone. 


	5. The Past part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit long. But I needed to give everything a back story. Please continue to let me know what you like or dislike =)  
> <3 S.B.T

\--5 years go--

Walking into the tower, you already had your misconceptions and judgement about this place. You remembered what your parents told you. People like them, were not meant to be around, they were evil and to not be trusted they told you. They were not like the the normal people, like Natasha and Clint, who like you had trained to become what they were, but the others, who got everything easily and used it for wrong doing. They were results of science experiments gone a ray, or the people born with the X-gene, and only lord knew what else. They all lied in wait in this building. You didn't know why you wasted your time crossing the ocean for this, but looking up at the tower, you couldn't help but feel drawn to it. With a deep breath you walk up to the front door and step in.

The first month was hard. You didn't sleep, you kept waiting for the other shoe to drop so to speak. You lived in the shadows, becoming a fly on the wall. Your training was hard to let go off, you spied on everyone, cased the security. You knew the in's and out's of it like the back of your hand. You heard things, people thought they were saying in confidence of no one else listening, you even stole things.

"You can just ask, anything you need or want." Natasha said when they found the missing things in your room. "We have unlimited resources."

Simply nodding, you handed her the things, so she could redistribute them back to their owners. But you continued to occasionally take, this time, it was things they wouldn't miss. You never had anything of your own, "easy to track, it's easier to not get attached to things," your mother said when you asked for a doll one year.

Despite the fact that you were in a building with things you grow up hating, you continued to listen. To the mutants, to the humans, to the super soldiers, to the lovers, they were all complex. But by your second month in the tower, you understood something that your parents never taught you.

They were more complex, they had feelings, fears, and love. And just like you they hid them. Slowly you began to try to make your own judgement in regards to them and tried to understand them further. Only as a mission, not as friends.

Natasha and Clint trained with you. You felt more comfortable with them, but you knew their relationship was something you would not be part of. "I just owe him a debt." She said one day, when you questioned her about it. Your curiosity always go the best of you. After a while you could see there was nothing more than friendship there. But  when she was around Steve, there was something more to those two.

 

\--4 years ago--

The day you were waiting for, finally came. They were sending you out on a mission. All the extra training and living by all the rules was finally paying off. Getting off what they called a bus, which you scoffed at. It was a plane! Call it a plane! you screamed at yourself internally. As you walked off, you looked around, though it was dark and the sun had long gone, you could recognize where you were. Your heart skipped a beat.

You were standing in Parc Borely.  You were in Marseille. You scoffed as you looked around. Were you really back in France? Were you really home? You don't know how they were able to do such a thing as land their craft in Parc Borely but you didn't care. Standing there you are snapped back to reality as Coulson, steps out into the clearing and calls your name. You were sent on a mission with Agent Barnes, as much as you disliked having to work with one of 'them,' you did it anyway.

"We are here to collect one," he looked down to read his notes, "Alexander Summers." You stood up straight now at full attention you remembered. "What do you want with him?" you find yourself blurting out loud.

"We have orders." Is all Coulson would respond. You scoffed. "Is there a problem, Agent Aspis?"

"No problem, Agent Coulson," you respond back just as sternly. "I'm here to do a job, and do it I will."

"Good, now, you and Agent Barnes here, will work together. We are taking him in, he has a certain set of skills that- " At this point you drown him out. You remember Alex Summers immensely. During your time as a free agent, you had met him. But he was just someone that you ran into and stayed with.

You did that a lot, staying with random men, sometimes women, to avoid having to stay in a hotel where your image would be captured. But Alex Summers was someone you stayed with the longest, and were actually sad to leave. But as Coulson  continued to brief the crew on the 'bus' and Bucky, you sneaked away. You know this town like the back of your hand. And you knew where Alex was.

\--

Sitting at the kitchen table, you sit up when the door opens. You don't say anything as the blond closes the door behind him, he turns around with a paper bag full of groceries. Turning around, he freezes when he sees you sitting there, when a smile appears on his face.

"Well, well (your name)," Alex says as he sits at the table and reaches into the bag pulling out a basket of strawberries. "I saw these at the market and thought of you. Now, that could not have been pure coincidence, could it."

You chuckle as you reach over and take one into your hands. "How appropriate."

"Well," he says as he leans over the table, "I remember how much you liked it in your breakfast," and holds your hand, "And in the bedroom." You give him a smirk as you bite into it. He gives you a once over, and the smile slowly fades from his face, "What are you wearing?"

You look down yourself, you have been waiting so long for him to come back home, that even you forgot that you're wearing the black spandex that seems to be some kind of requirement for this team. "Umm," you say not knowing what to say. "I don't know to be honest." You both let out a laugh, when you finally decide to be honest with him. Well, slightly.

"Alex, I came across some information that says the Avengers are looking for you. Any reason why?"

He sits back in his chair letting his head rest back slightly. "My brother." he simply says.

"Scott? What does he have to do with any of it." Scott was someone that Alex always spoke about but you never met.

He stands up, "There's something that I never told you about my brother and I. I didn't know how to tell you."

"Well," you say as you take another strawberry from the basket. "I'm here now so tell me."

"You have to promise not to freak out." He says as he stands up from the chair and begins to make his way to the bedroom. You just nod your head as he retreats into the bedroom for five minutes.

When he walks back out, you have finished the basket of strawberries, and stare at him with a mouth wide open. He's wearing a black body suit with a shining blue light in the middle, something almost resembling Stark's heart, with blue lines that run around his chest and up his neck.

"Nique ta mere!" you stammer as you stand up and take a step back away from him.

"You promised." he says he makes his way slowly across the room towards you.

"Ta gueule! Ta gueule!" you shout at him, angered at this.

"(Your name)," he starts but you're angry now.

"You're a fucking mutant!" you yell at him. "You know how I feel about that. Why?"

"I was born this way."

"Why didn't you tell me!?" you shout, as you think about all the nights you spent together.

"Because I didn't know how! You would only stay for a couple of days and disappear and appear again months later. I didn't think I would ever have to tell you."

"Fuck," you mutter as you pace back and forth, "The fuck is wrong with my life."

"Nothing," he says as he puts his hands on your shoulders and makes you face him. "I'm still the same Alex."

You look into his eyes, and see the same man you have always known. Confusion fills you. He had always been kind and sweet, protective of you, what if your parents were wrong. Maybe they were good. Staring into his eyes, you continue to doubt yourself, but you can’t bring yourself to admit it. “Get the fuck away from me!” you say as she shove him back. When all the sudden the front door was kicked in.

It was Bucky. "Get away from her!" he commanded as he began to make his way across the room.  

"Get behind me." Alex says, which you obey, but when you see him raise his hands, palm facing Bucky, you realize that he's going to hurt Bucky. As much as you disliked the super solider, you couldn't let harm come to him.

"No!" you say as you shove Alex's hand in another direction, which causes him to make a hole in ceiling of the house. Leaving a chance for Bucky to punch him across the face and throw him across the room into a wall. "Stop!" you shout at Bucky as he begins to walk over to Alex who lays on the floor.

Seeing as he wouldn't stop, you quickly think through your training. Your parents trained you to kill, but you can't do that. Natasha's training comes into your thoughts and without hesitation you quickly run across the room, quickly you jump, let your legs hook onto either side of Bucky's neck, let your body swing around with momentum, and let the weight of your body yank Bucky's body suddenly down onto the floor, as you stand up. You didn't execute it as well as she does, but it got the job done.

"Wait!" you say at Bucky full of anger. As you help Alex off the floor, you decided to  be honest with him. "Well I haven't been too honest with you either."

"I see that now." Alex says as he accepts your help. Bucky stands up slowly, watching as Alex drapes his arm around your shoulder and leans into you for support. "Must I say," he says as tilts his head down towards your chest, "This outfit makes your breast look, simply exquisite."

You laugh as you help him sit in a chair. "You already knew that though." you say with a smirk. Looking at Bucky, you simply say, "Just give us a minute."

"I'm not going anywhere!" he growled.

"Fine. Just stand there!" you say with your back towards him as you sit across the table from Alex.

"So you're one of them now." he says sitting up straight now regaining his composure. You know what he means, you just simply nod. He nods back, "I have to say, you could have done worse." You smirk at him, and he smiles back, "But then again we both have done worse."

"So," you begin but he cuts you off.

"I'm ready to go. I knew this day would come. And I'm fine, at least I know that my brother will be there."

"Scott? I’ve been there for a while. I never seen him."

He nods at you, "He is there, but you would know him better as Cyclops."

Cyclops, you remember talks of him, but never seeing him. It helped that you never met Scott to begin with. Alex stood up and nodded over to Bucky, "I'll leave with you guys, but I will go by my code name from now on."

"Which is?" you ask as you stand behind him.

"Havok." he simply responds.

-

As the day came to an end, you found yourself sneaking away from the 'bus' again. You made your way up to the Basilica and decided to watch the sunset. You couldn't recall your last sunset in your native land, and wanted to enjoy it. As you sat on a balcony, you let the last of the sun warm your cheeks, you close your eyes and allow yourself to feel its fleeting glow.

The moment is crushed when you hear someone coming close, and there's only one person who lets their feet fall with such carelessness. "Agent Barnes, are you here to drag me back?"

He doesn't answer and you don't move, or open your eyes.

"Tell them, I'm not going back. I don't belong there."

"And you belong here?" you hear him ask, and from the sound of it, he's standing next to you. A sigh escapes you as you open your eyes and see the sun sinking in the distance. You look at the landscape around you, you thought you knew your world so well. Alex turned out to be a mutant, what else out there have you been wrong about. 

"I don't belong anywhere." You simply say as you stand up.

"Natasha thinks otherwise." he simply says as he follow behind you. Pivoting on the heels of your feet, you turn around and face him, as you spit out bitterly. “She doesn’t know who I am. Nor, where I belong. But what would you know about that!”

Turning around you begin to walk slightly faster now. But he can keep up, “Well, good riddance.” he says as he begins to pass you.

“Fuck you.” you mutter as you stand still where you are, you feel some last warmth of the sun on your back.

“No, fuck you.” Bucky replies as he walks back to you, now so close that the front of your shoes were touching his. “You think you don’t belong, we all don’t, okay. Life is not turning out how you would like, boo fucking ho. Everyone at the tower has no where else to belong as well, why do you think we’re all there.”

As he turned away, he said over his shoulder, “At least with you gone, you’ll be out of my hiding spots in the shadows, and I can have them back again.”

After walking back to the bus, Bucky looked around and saw that you weren't there in the clearing. “Figures,” he said under his breath as he  made his way in.

While it began its ascent, Bucky decided to look for this Havok, he felt a need to apologize for earlier. He had only attacked him because he heard the screaming and thought that Agent Aspis was being attacked.

He never talked to anyone on the bus, and today was no exception. He had some trouble looking for Havok, seeing as he wasn't really a villain and they didn't need to interrogate him. As he walked up towards the command center, he heard a commotion, coming behind the interrogation room,  in the cargo hold.

“My bet is on Havok.”  Fitz said.

“Mine on Aspis.” Agent May said.

He heard some other people say other things, and as he approached he saw what it was. Aspis had not stayed behind as he had originally thought, how did she even get here before him? As he walked in, he saw that some boxes had been moved out to make a clearing in the cargo hold. In the center he say Havoc, wearing a pair of sweats and no shirt. Across from him was you, wearing a tank top, and a pair of form fitting work out pants that ended mid calf. They both were stretching.

“Just like old times?” Havok laughed over the commotion.

You smiled back, “Just like old times.”

And with that you both got into the center of the clearing and begin to spar. Bucky chuckled to himself as he crossed his arms in front of his chest, maybe he was just as wrong about you as you were about him. About all of them. 


	6. The Past part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and liking my story. Feed back is welcome! Comment, let me know what you do or do not like! 
> 
> <3 SBT
> 
> PS this chapter is pretty long because I had a sudden inspiration and I could not stop typing, like I said feedback is welcome.

\--3 years ago ---

“I can’t believe that you’re leaving me.” you say as you hug Alex one more time. His things are packed up, and he’s ready to go.

“I can’t believe that you're staying here.” he responds as you both let go. In the past year you had to admit you grown quite a bit. You trained with mutants and with others, rather than just Clint and Natasha. Friends, were the last thing you thought you’d find in these people.

“Well, I like you guys, but I don’t think that I will be much help at X’s academy. Plus you and Scott need time to catch up.”

Alex smiled as he hooked his arm around your waist, you both were standing in the lobby waiting for a car to take him to the airport. The available aircrafts that the team had were all out dealing with another threat, and Alex could no longer wait.

“That’s true. But you will always be my friend. Call me if you need anything,” he says and he pulls you close against his body, and kiss your forehead. “Anything.”

You both let out a laugh, as you let go. You stand there, watch him get in a cab, and disappear. That night you couldn’t sleep. Your only true friend, someone who was there before you joined this team, and then again after you joined the team, was gone. You found yourself wondering around the tower, like you used to when you first joined.

Wanting to see stars again, you think about heading to the penthouse and then decide against it. The party deck. At least there you could see some stars. You head up, and decide to get to the very edge of the deck to sit and look over the city. You were about to reach the edge when you see the outline of someone already sitting there.

Turning on your heels, you were about to leave, when you hear a husky voice say, “You can stay.” It was Bucky. You were about to turn him down, but you wanted the company and you wanted to see the stars, so you accept. You slowly make your way over and sit a foot away from him as you let your feet dangle over the edge.

“Unable to sleep Agent Aspis?”

“I never do,” you respond with a smile as you look up to the sky. “And yourself, Agent Barnes?”

“You took all my spots in the shadows, so I had become creative.”

“I’m sorry,” you say softly, and you think about all the friends you were making, you had no need for the shadows anymore lately. “You can have them back if you want. I don’t think I need them anymore.”

He looked over at you, you could see him from the corner of your eye, but you didn’t turn your head to look at him. Just continued to stare up at the stars. “You know about that thing I did to you, that time we brought in Alex,” you start as you stare down at your legs. “Sorry.”

A laugh escapes his throat, “You’re apologizing about something that you did over a year ago?”

You let out a laugh, “Well, when you say it like that.”

“It’s water under the bridge. Old news.”

“Thanks,” you say as you continue to stare up into the sky. The light pollution dulls them out, but you can see them none the less and smile.

“Havok?”

“He left this morning while everyone was out.” you say with a hint of sadness.

“You miss him?”

You nod, you don’t know why, but you tell him, “He’s the only person who knew me in my life before, and my life now. And I lost a sparring partner as well.” you let a chuckle out. The air is getting colder, and rain clouds begin to make their way over the tower. For once you find yourself actually wanting to sleep. “I’m gonna make my way to bed now, night,” you were about to call him Agent Barnes again, when you realize that you don’t know his real name. “What is your name?”

“Bucky.”

You laugh. “No, not your nickname, or your code name. I mean like my name is, (your name.)”

He looks at you with some confusion for a moment, as if no one had ever asked him that before. “James,” he mutters under his breath.

“James,” you repeat to yourself as you stand up. “Good night James.”

He just nodded, as you reached the door, you heard him right beside you, which you had to admit took you off guard. He was usually heavy footed and you could hear him coming a mile away, but right now, he was quiet as a cat. “If you want, I could spar with you.”

You smile and nod your head at him. Sparing with a super solider, with a metal arm, if that didn't prepare you for the field, you don’t know what would. “I’d like that.”

And you head off to your room.

James and you grow close during the next couple of months. Training during the day, and talking at night under the stars. Or at least he listened and you talked. He showed you how to wield a knife, and how use it properly in combat, and you showed him how to pick locks. A skill he called useless, seeing that he could just kick down a door, but he was patient and learned it nonetheless. He would even let you  use him as a guinea pig for new moves you  tried out.

But as you two got closer, he also learned how to tell when you were  lying. Your tell,which you didn't even know you had, was the word ‘frankly.’ You didn't notice that you would always start a lie with the word frankly, as you thought up a quick lie. But he didn't tell you, he would just smirk to himself when he would overhear you in a conversation. 

You hated to admit it, but you liked being around him. When he left for missions, you’d talk to others, but it wasn't the same.

After what you pulled on the last mission, you weren't allowed to go out for a while, and you became restless. Soon after a couple of months, instead of meeting with Bucky, you’d sneak out of the tower. Sometimes to have fun at bars and clubs, other times looking for a fight.

One night you were out, enjoying yourself, you had “borrowed” a dress from someone's closet. You weren't sure whose, but it didn't matter to you. You never drank, but emotions were starting to get the best of you, you were lonely, and drank. You drank. And you drank. You danced. And you drank some more. Somehow you had attached yourself to a group of people who were club hopping and found yourself at Marquee. You couldn't help but get lost in the sea of people.

Bodies gyrating. Alcohol flowing. No worries in the world. You soon forgot who you were as well. You danced, took shots, and kissed strangers.

You never felt more liberated in your life.

Soon, someone came over, “My friend,” he said pointing up at the VIP section. A rather well looking guy, raised a martini glass at you as he sipped from it. “Would like the pleasure of your company.” You smiled, you wanted to just be a normal person for once. Do what they do. You followed him back to the VIP section, where you sat and drank with the man for a while. You giggled like a schoolgirl, which was new for you, and you danced. When he twirled you around, you felt like you saw someone following you.

A man with a baseball cap, and a jacket with the collar turned up. But you shook it off, when you looked again, he was gone. The club wouldn’t allow entrance to someone dressed like that, and soon you were lost in the strangers' embrace once more. After what seemed like hours, he handed you a drink which you happily accepted.

A couple of minutes later, your knees felt like jelly, and began to feel like you were unable to hold yourself up. “Whow.” the stranger said as he wrapped an arm around your waist and helped you stand up straight. “I think I should take you home.” he says.

“No. I’m fine.” you say slightly shoving him away, “I can get home myself.” You try to stand up straight but your legs are unable to do so, and you almost fall as you descend the stairs. That's when you realized you were stupid in accepting a drink from a stranger.

"Please, I insist." he says as he began to lead you out of the club. Everything screamed don't, but you were drugged. You could tell. You're legs were becoming jelly and your vision was tunneling. Fuck was all you could think as you found yourself in the back alley of the club. You try to punch the guy, but your arm falls short of your command. Mentally, you beat the fuck up out of yourself, how could you have let this happen.

“Alright, lets see what I have here.” he says as he props you up against a wall. You hold onto the dumpster besides you, unable to hold yourself up. His hands begin to hike your skirt up, as you limply swat his hands away.

Suddenly you find yourself on the floor, as the stranger is knocked back onto the floor by the man with the baseball hat. The stranger lays there on the cement, unable to move, you’re not sure if he’s alive or not. Then the man with the baseball cap comes over and gives you his hand to help you up. But you’re skeptical and instead of taking his hand, you spit out. “Who are you, what do you want?”

He simply removes his cap, lets his hair fall down around his face and squats next to you. “To get you home.”

“James?” you say confused. He slightly flinches at the sound of his name but helps you up. After a bit, you convince him to take to a hole in the wall restaurant first to eat.

Replenishing fluids with water and soda, and eating. God, did your stomach hurt, but you begin to sober up with subsistence soaking up the alcohol in your system, and your body cleaning out whatever it was the stranger slipped in your drink. Over the food you ask Bucky what he was doing, and he doesn't respond at first, but after a while, he admits that he has been following you for a while. He says that at first that when you wouldn’t show up on the deck, that he thought you were just tired and were sleeping. But as the days continued he noticed you were tired during the day, and grew suspicious. So, one night he followed you, and he continued to follow you to keep you safe. Especially when he followed you a couple weeks ago, and you had found an underground fighting ring. 

You swallow hard, you never had anyone watch out for you like that. You feel something inside, but you can't tell what it is. It starts in your chest and sort of radiates everywhere, and you quickly excuse yourself for the restroom. You splash water on your face, and convince yourself it was just the alcohol.

After settling the bill, you head off together to the tower. The sun was coming out now, and as you walk into the tower, Coulson and Stark stand in the lobby. With their arms crossed, both with stern looks on their faces.  _Fuck._

They both begin to talk a mile a minute, and before you could open your mouth to response, Bucky does. "It was my idea. I wanted to go out, and I asked (your name) to accompany me." 

All three of you stand with mouths wide open, after another two minutes of complaints, talks of rules, and the proper way to do things, they finally dismiss you and the both of you ride the elevator up in silence. 

You don't know what to say, and as the ding signals the door opening on your floor, you take a step out, but quickly turn around. Your mouth opens to say something when he simply says. 

"Good night Aspis."

"Why?" you almost shout. 

As the door closes, you see him half smile, "Wouldn't want to lose my sparring partner, now would I?" 

You stand there for a couple of seconds, staring at the closed doors, when a smile appears on your face as well. The warm feeling in your chest starts again, spreads throughout your body, and you feel your face flush as well. You quickly make your way back to your room, and lay to sleep with a smile on your face.

That night you dream of your parents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will have one more flashback chapter before returning back to the predicament that you find yourself in. I just thought it would be best to give you a little insist as to how you and Bucky's romance came to be! 
> 
> As always please let me know what you do or do not like! <3 S.B.T


	7. The Past part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! Please don't be shy to leave me comments, both positive and negative! Let me know what you like and dislike 
> 
> <3 S.b.T

\--2 years ago--

You were finally going out on missions again, with the promise that if you ran again you would be thrown out of the tower. This time it was a recon mission, since Natasha and Steve were out on another mission, you were to be the one to extract information. You read the casefile that Coulson had prepared for you, and discovered that your target had a thing for blonds. You didn’t know how you were going to pull this off, this was Natasha’s expertise, not yours. But you wanted to prove yourself, and they had chosen you for the mission.

The day of the mission you were in your room getting ready, when there was a knock on your door. “Come in!” you say as you do a circle dance trying to zip up your dress, it had been so long since you worn one. As you do, Bucky comes in, “Aspis?” he asks as your back is turned to the door. His mouth is wide open as he can’t believe what you look like. You had dyed your hair blonde, which was curled and framed your face. You were also wearing four inch heels with a red dress that hugged on every curve of your body, which ended just above your knees, and off the shoulders. A dress you were having trouble zip up, “Can you help me with this please.” you say as you walk backwards towards him, “I can’t get it.”

He snaps himself out of it and reaches over, and zips up your dress. “How can you breathe in that?” he asks, as you turn around to face him, he see’s you with makeup on your face. Something that he never had seen before. You’re wearing several layers of makeup and foundation, eyeliner, mascara,the reddest shade of lipstick that you could find that matched your dress, and he could smell a hint of perfume. Something he couldn’t pinpoint, it was floral, with some vanilla, but musk as well, it was intoxicating, and enchanting. He could see now how you were able to survive on your own for so long, you knew the rules of attraction, and you knew how to use them well. 

"You don't." you say with a laugh.

He clears his throat. “Coulson says we need to leave stat.”

You simply nod, “Lead the way.”

On the bus, Coulson briefed everyone, you were to get intel on the man, named Zaran, and word was that he was hired to steal Captain America’s shield. You were to go in and get as much intel as you could, who else was involved, how did they plan on getting into the tower, who was giving him the intel. So on and so forth.

Bucky kept looking at you from the corner of his eye, it began to make you slightly uncomfortable, and you thanked god you were wearing blush to hide the reddening in your cheeks. For the last couple of months the warmth that started in your chest and radiated everywhere, had increased. Especially when you were around him. Even more when you caught him looking at you. 

Once on the ground you make your move, you blended into the crowd at a casino he frequents, and work the room. You having done this so many times in your life, you know what to do, you get his eye, without even trying, and ignore him. You flirt with other men and have a drink or two as you let the olives rest on your lips, teasing.

“Are you working, or treating this as a night out?” Agent May’s voice fills your ear in your concealed corresponder. You mutter under your breath and against the back of your teeth to not appear talking as you smile at the man standing in front of you. “Five seconds.”

“What?” May says back.

“Four, three, two,” you say under your breath, and you don’t get to say one, when Zaran finally approaches you. He nods at his bodyguards to remove the gentleman you were talking with, and replaces him, “Why do I not know your name. I know everyone here, who are you?”

“Damn she’s good.” Simmons says in your ear.

After an hour of flirting, some slight touches, a hand on his lap, reaching up to move some hair out of his face, he finally invites you back to his place. You smile, giggle and play hard to get, make up some excuse for why you can’t go. “Frankly,” you start, and you hear a slight chuckle in your ear, was that Coulson? “I can’t I have work tomorrow, and would prefer to be well rested.”

Zaran just reaches over and insists on you coming over, and he winks as he says he’ll make sure that you will be ‘well rested.’ You let him lead you out with his bodyguards to his waiting car. As it reaches his building, you see through the window that the front door has a guard with a metal detector and think quick.

As he exits first, you take off your earpiece and mike, “Going dark,” you mutter quickly as you smash them in your fist, and let the tiny pieces clatter in the storm drain, and pretend that the noise is the heel of your shoe getting caught in the openings. “I think I had too much to drink.”you giggle as Zaran reaches out an arm around your waist to balance you.

‘She is good,’ you imagine May’s voice again.

Together, you ride the elevator with Zaran and his two bodyguards. They stand near the door with their backs towards you, as you begin to make out. He is rough and his callused hands ran up and down your body, as the elevator opens, he grabs your ass and he leads you to his door. Opening the door, he excuses his guards, who refuse, but he quickly reprimands them, and they leave.

Once the door is closed, his hands are prying to get your dress off, and you laugh as you try to play coy. You play a game of cat and mouse for a while, to make sure that guards had left. “So,” you say as you walk around the room seductively, “What does a man like you do, to get such a great place to live.”

“You don’t have to play coy anymore,” Zaran says, as he removes his coat and lets it fall onto his couch, “I know who you are.”

You stick to your plan, “Really?” you say, and with a swish of your hips you walk over to him and run your hand down his chest, playing his tie. “And what is that?”

He grabs your wrist, spins you around and holds your back against his chest, he puts his lips on your neck as he whispers. “Aspis.”

Your heart stops he knows who you are, but how much does he know? “Oh, really, and pray tell me, what about me is that you know?”

“I know that you were born and raised a killer. I know that you left countless bodies in your wake, but no one seems to know how to find you. That is until now.” he kisses your shoulder as he lets his hands run over your stomach and down your abdomen, “I’ve always wanted to meet you.” His hands now on your sides, he runs them down the outside of your legs, only stopping when his fingers hook at the bottom of your dress. “I also know, that you now live with those freaks in New York.” his fingers dig into your thighs violently.

Swiftly, you throw your elbow back into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and turning around with an open palm, you hit him hard on his chin causing his head to snap back, which made him to fall back unconscious. You know you have limited time, and quickly begin to case the rooms. You find each one empty with no trace of paperwork, or some sort of communication, no computer or phones. “Fuck,” you mutter to yourself, was this all for naught?

Standing in the bedroom with your hand on your hips, you’re pissed. You look up at the ceiling thinking about how to proceed. Seeing how you had to destroy your  communication device, there was no way you could ask the team how they would you to proceed. As you bring your head down slowly back to where it properly belongs, you see a faint blue light coming from behind a bookcase. “Son of a bitch,” you smile as you walk over and shove the bookcase to the side to reveal a hidden room. Within it was a computer, a wall with pictures of the tower, blueprints of the tower. Pictures of several people that live in the tower, with names, and things learned through surveillance litter another wall.

You quickly make your way to the computer and try to get information off of it. It was off, and you push the button to turn it on, when it begins to boot up, you see a gleam in the screen, and quickly duck under the table. “You bitch.” Zaran spits at you as he wields a sai in each hand, advancing towards you. He charges at you, you catch his left wrist with your right hand as you dodge to the left of him, and uppercut him underneath his ribs, causing him to grunt. But you remember the file on him, he was secret service trained and knew both unarmed and armed combat. Right now your safest bet to staying alive would be if you could disarm him and take one of those sais from him, but he just grips them tighter.

Quickly, you duck out of the room, back into the bedroom and look around looking for something to defend yourself with, and quickly grab a floor lamp using it as a staff. As he exits the room, you hear the guards pound on the front door. It’s only a matter of time before you get flanked, you could really use some backup, if only you could let them know you needed them.

Zaran is relentless, but so are you, you both continue to fight, and it’s only until you back up against the sofa, do you realize that you’re in the living room. You fall back onto it, and he laughs as he charges forwards, you don’t know how, but you somehow manage to dodge the sai meant for your chest. You quickly headbutt him, hard, making his nose bleed, as he reaches up for it with his right hand, you grab his left arm, and with an open palm, you slam it into his side with as much force you can muster, hearing a crack. But you don’t stop, you grab his arm lock your legs around it, and quickly yank forward on it until you hear a pop.

As he lays there cursing at you, you quickly grab whatever you can, and begin throw them them out the window, shattering the glass and causing commotion on the ground below. You just need them to know that you need them.

As you do, the front door breaks down, and you quickly begin to get flanked by the guards. “Destroy it!” Zaran yells, you think they are talking about you, but you see half of them head towards the room, and the other half towards you. Shit, you think to yourself, they’re destroying what you came here for, you were about to head for the room again, when the half that was coming after you, begin to fire their guns, causing you to take cover behind a kitchen island. “The bitch is mine!” you hear Zaran say as he snaps his shoulder back into place, you can also hear guns fire in the room where the intel was and you hate yourself. It’s all being destroyed.

It’s now or never, you grab pans and begin to fling them at the guards and Zaran as you try to make your way back to the bedroom to try to keep them from destroying everything.

You knock out a couple out and manage to throw some at Zaran, as you ran into the bedroom, you felt pain in your abdomen but you continue. Once in the room you disarm two guards, and that’s when May and Bucky appear next to you disarming the others. After everyone is down, you all regroup in the living room, Zaran had escaped your fingers, but you had most of the intel.

“Are you okay?” Coulson asks.

“What do you mean?” you slur, suddenly feeling tired.

“You look pale.”

You looks down at your hands, he’s right. When you look at your feet, now standing still, a steady drip of blood begins to pool at your feet.

“You’ve been shot.” May says with urgency.

“Well, look at that.” you say with a slight laugh as you run your fingers over your low stomach, only to bring them back up to your face covered in blood. You feel your legs give out underneath you, and before you can hit the floor, Bucky is at your side, as he takes a nearby rag and applies pressure to the wound.

“Get her back to the bus now!” Coulson instructs Bucky. “Simmons, Aspis has been shot,” he says into his com. “Agent Barnes is bringing her in now.”

You have no strength left, you let yourself go limp in his arms as he runs out. “The stars.” you simply whisper with a peaceful smile on your face. If you were to die, this is how you would like it to be.

“Don’t! Bucky says as he gently shakes you up so your head rests on his chest, and looking up at him, instead of the sky. “You stay with me!” he shouts at you.

You just smile, “It’s okay.” you whisper. “I knew time would catch up to me.”

“No! It’s not!” he says as he jumps over something, causing you to bob in his arms again. “We’re almost there!”

You begin to close your eyes, “Don’t leave me Aspis!”

You hear Simmons command Bucky to lay you on the table, but it sounds like they are at a far end of a tunnel, and you can’t bring yourself to open your eyes. Too weak. Too tired.

Last thing you hear, is Simmons saying the bullet went clean through, and that she needed to control the bleeding, as Bucky whispered into your ear, “I don’t want to be in the shadows anymore, I want to be with you.”

 

\--1 year ago--

You’re dead. You know know it. Why else would you be reliving all your memories right now? You feel no pain, no sadness. An image of your parents comes into your mind. Then Alex. Then all the people you ever came across in your travels. Then the images of the people you killed. The contracts you took, wash over you, and you do feel sadness.

In the past five years, you developed emotions you thought you would never be able to do so. Emotions you were taught to ignore.

All the sudden the last five years begin to wash away, words, conversations began to disappear.

Panic begins to fill you. You are full of faces with no names. A girl with red hair. A man with a blue mask. A man with a hole in his chest. Who are these people?? Then the face of a man with long brown hair fills your mind, what is his name? And why does he illicit such an emotional response from you?

As fast as the images filled your brain, they left.

Emptiness filled you for moment. What were you thinking about? What was going on? Were you asleep?

Last thing you remembered was going out on a contract. Were you ambushed? You force yourself to open your eyes.


	8. Who are you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading my story! Please let me know what you like or dislike!! =) 
> 
> <3 S.B.T

Bucky was in the room you both shared, cradling the bundle of life that had come out of you. He couldn’t help but smile, he had your eyes and facial expressions, but his hair was black at night. Each time that he looked down at the infant in his arms, he saw your face. Admittedly he had to wear a long sleeve or sweater every time that he picked him up, the infant would cry every time the cold metal of his left arm touched him.

It took him a while to warm  up to the infant, Bucky was in denial. But he had made you a promise, so he tried his best. While you were being worked on in the medical wing day in and out, the agents that were available would rotate shifts with your son. They began to call him J.J., James Junior, they would call him. At first it was a joke, but then it became his name.

Bucky was changing the infant, when Steve walked in. “Bucky! She’s waking up.” His heart skipped a beat as he wrapped a blanket around the infant. “Finally, a whole week.” he grumbled as he picked up the infant, and quickly made his way out of the room.

“Bucky wait!” Steve called after him, but he heard no word that he said, he just wanted to see you.

-

You sit up to find people talking miles a minute, your head hurts, your stomach hurts. Everything points to you giving birth. There were more people than you could count right now in your room. What the hell was going on?  
Just than a man with a metal arm came in with an infant. The girl, who everyone calls Simmons, takes the baby from his arms and places it in your arms.  As you look down at the infant, everyones face turns into sadness, and they all look at the man with the metal arm and then back at you. You hear nothing, you see their mouths move, but you hear nothing. Looking at the infant in your arms, you can see what everyone has been telling you since you woke up, this was your child.

You clutch to the child with every ounce of your strength. You needed something to anchor you on to earth, and this was it. Looking up you finally begin to listen to everything going on.

“She doesn’t remember anything at all?” you hear the man with the metal arm say.

“We don’t know how much she does or does not remember.” A man with a lab coat and glasses says. “So far, she doesn’t remember any of us, or what she’s doing here.

Yes, what are you doing here with the freaks? A voice deep down inside of you replies to you, They’re not freaks. But you shook it away. Why would you think that?! Of course they are!

“(your name),” a red haired woman says as she gets closer to you, but then all the sudden it’s like she hits an invisible wall, and the infant coos in amusement in your arms.

You look down at his smile, and then back up at everyone else. “Who the fuck are all of you? What the hell is going on?”

-

A couple of hours later, you were in the room everyone said was yours. You looked around, apparently, from what everyone told you, the metal armed man and you, shared this room.

Here you were, somewhere you have no idea how you got. With people that disgust you, and a child. You walk over to the closet and see what’s there.  What was all this? So much color? Uniforms? There were men and women clothes, and you were a bit confused, were these yours? Were those his? Were you guys really together?

You heard about mutants that could plant memories, but when you looked in the mirror, you could see that your face has aged, your hair is longer. You look different. The child cries and you head over to the bed where you left him, and begin to rock him in your arms. How are you going to take care of this kid?

After what seems like an hour, you finally decide to take a shower as the infant finally sleeps. As you finish getting dressed, the metal armed man and Alex walk in.

“Alex?” you ask bewildered. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you really not remember?” he asks as he walks over and hugs you.

You just shake your head, as you walk over to the now crying infant on the bed.

The metal armed man stands off in the shadow of a corner near the door, while Alex sits on the bed next to you. As you change and rock the child, Alex begins to tell you what happened, and who he is.

You sit there stunned. What is happening? Alex decides that you could stand to have some alone time, and tells the metal arm man to leave. Alex kisses your forehead and whispers “I’ll be downstairs if you want to talk,” before leaving himself.

No. This can’t be you say as you look around. The child coos in your arms again, no. This can’t be your life. It has to be a mistake, it has to be some kind of mutant trick.

You bundle the child up as you pack some things in a bag. You know you can’t stay, or let this child stay here. You have no idea how you became so maternal, but looking at the infant, just does something to you. You are going to protect this child and yourself from these mutants. Maybe he was a product of some experiment they did on you? And Alex? Maybe he was brainwashed too.

Whatever the case, you’re not going to spend the night here. No you’re going to do what you do best.

Run.

\--

“Shouldn’t we take her already?” Zaran snipped at Loki, as they stood on the roof of the building across from the tower.

“No.” Loki said calmly. “Did you not hear. She doesn’t remember a thing. We need her memories back first.”

“How do we do that?”

“We wait.”

“WAIT!” Zaran bursted with anger.

Loki just smiled as he watched you walk down the streets of New York with the child in your arms. Blending into the crowd. Disappearing.

“I need her to know who she is, and when she gets her memories back, she will be so full of anger that she will be begging for our help.” Loki smiled as he walked away from the ledge. “Until that moment we wait.”

Zaran stared down into the crowds watching you with anger. “Your time will come bitch.” He simply said as he walked away with Loki.

"Oh," Loki said with a teeth baring grin, "All their times will come. Soon they will all be dead." 


	9. Home

You always found your way around, and before they knew you were gone, you and the infant had snuck on a cruise ship on its way back to Europe. If there was anywhere where you were going to get answers, it was going to be back home. As you stood on the top deck watching New York disappear in the distance, you felt your arms get tired, you looked down at the infant. Was he getting heavier? Did he have that much hair? He was pretty big for a week old infant, but you shake it off. You know nothing about children, so you chalk it up to shock from everything that just happened.   
\--  
Once everyone noticed you were missing, chaos ensued in the tower. Half wanted to hunt you down, another half wanted to help you. Tensions were high.   
“Why her!” Tony repeated as he paced the room.   
“Why does it matter! We need her back, she knows the in and outs of the tower, what if someone get ahold of her.” Clint spoke up as he sat on the back of the couch. “Information like that would be damaging to us.”   
“Where would she go?” Natasha said as she sat down lost in thought.  
“We need to help her, she just doesn’t remember what’s happened in the last couple of years.” Havoc responded.   
As an argument broke out yet again, Banner walked in with Simmons looking rather worried. “We need to find them now.” Simmons said breaking up the argument.  
“We know that!” Clint snapped.   
“No,” Banner said as he brought up images on Starks computers, causing a 3-D image to appear in the middle of the room. “We need to find them because the child is growing at an unexpected rate.”   
Pulling up a chart, images and information of the child, Bucky quickly got uncomfortable, for most of this he sat in silence.   
“When he was born, he was 6 pounds, and approximately 20 inches.” Banner began. He put up pictures of the child side by side, and they realized what he meant, in a week he looked like a month old child. He had gotten bigger, grew more hair, and his face had become more refined, showing characteristics that matched his mothers.   
Everyone had began to leave wherever it was that they had sat to contemplate over your departure, and stared at the child. It was just like looking at you.   
“Yes, growing babies, do that.” Stark snarled at the scientist.   
Banner continued not minding or paying attention to anything that Stark said. “At first, Simmons and I thought that it was an error in the system, but it wasn’t.” He said as he brought up another screen a graph of the childs vitals. “Not only was he gaining weight and growing, but he was aging.”   
“How did no one notice this?” Steve asked with his arms crossed.   
“Everyone was too busy trading the baby back and forth that no one noticed.” Simmons said as she stepped forward. “Everyone had only handled him in increments of short hours, no same person handled him again.”   
“So what does this all mean?” Havoc said stepping forward next to Steve in front of Banner and Simmons.   
Banner spoke, “The child will be a year old by the end of the month. And he’ll keep growing. We don’t know what it is that is making this happen, but we need to have them back before he gets too old for us to be able to do anything.”   
“Before we do any of the sort, we need to find out why her.” Tony said stepping into the center of it all, and pulling up pictures of your face. “What is so special about Agent Aspis. In a towel full of extraordinary people, why this assassin.”   
“But we researched her intensively before extending an invitation to her.” Natasha said taking slight offense that the quality of her work was being questioned.   
“She was orphaned at eight when he parents were caught double crossing the Americans. Everyone knows Agent Aspis’s story.”   
“Or we only know what she wants us to know.” Stark added. “What happened in the last 20 years before we took her in? Sure she had methods of keeping herself alive, but what during her twenty years makes her so special.”   
“I’ll have Skye double check everything.” Simmons said as she walked away.   
“What do we do now?” Havoc asked as he looked around the room of Avengers.   
“We have to find her,” Banner said, “That child needs medical attention.”   
“We need to question her. She might have been a double agent just like her parents.” Stark retorts.   
“No,” Havoc piped in, “That’s not her.”   
“Stark has a point, maybe she was just playing us from the beginning.” Clint adds.   
“But for who? She never communicated with anyone outside of the tower.” Natasha ponders out loud.   
“Right now, I think our best course of action is to bring her back before anymore time passes. We need to talk to her right away.” Steve finally said commanding the attention of the room. “Skye will look up anything that we may have missed.”   
As the team continued to plan what would their plan be, Bucky just stood in the shadows. His mind was racing a million miles a minute, he knew you. He knew that you would be gone by now. But he didn’t know, or rather want, that what any of them said to be right.   
If you had been a double agent and he never knew, he felt like a failure for letting you in and not knowing. If you weren’t, he was heart broken that you did not remember this. He shook his thoughts off as he listened to everyone else make their plans. He needed his head in the game to have some chance of bringing you back.   
\--  
14 days. 14 long days on the ship, and you made acquaintance with a fellow shipmates who were mothers. You didn’t want to, but after the baby wouldn’t stop crying for a couple of hours, you asked for help. You needed something to keep you anchored to earth, and this, J.J as they called him, was it. Some taught you something called swaddling techniques which he seemed to love. Some taught you how to bounce him around, but they all said holding him and loving him was the best way to go.   
Love. Such a foreign concept, you couldn’t remember a single moment in which your parents hugged you, or let alone said they loved you. “It’s a sign of weakness.” you hear your mother's voice echo again in the recesses of your mind. But you kept up appearances on the ship, you rocked him, you baby talked to him, you held him close when he fussed, and you slowly felt an attachment to it.   
A warmth would radiate in your chest and slowly take over you when ever he looked up at you with a smile.   
Finally reaching Spain, you changed your hair again to avoid detection. You chopped it off, so it reaches just past your ears, and dye it brown. Along with some clothes you stole from passengers, you didn’t need to buy anything. Once off the ship, you smiled. Even the air was different in Europe. Why would you ever have left?   
You smile at the child in your arms, he smiled back, had he grown more hair? Had he grown bigger? No, you shake it off, you’re just tired. “It’s time to go home.” you say to the child, who just coos and smiles back.   
Before anyone even knew it, you had made it back to France. Back home. 

“Are we just going to leave her to do what she wants!” Zaran spitted once again at Loki as they watched you from a distant field as you entered the cottage out in a clearing in The Alps. Winter had passed, the snow had melted, causing the flowers to blossom, and made grass look much crisper and greener than any grass you had seen.   
“Patience, Zaran.” Loki said calmly. “Everything is going smoothly. Soon enough, we’ll both have what we want.”   
\--  
Skye ran through the hallways of the towers as fast as she could. For the last couple of weeks she had been scouring everything she could about Agent Aspis, and finally found out why Loki wanted her. The one thing that no one knew, the story of her birth.   
The tower had been in chaos because of your disappearance. No one knew if you were in the states, or out. With friends, or enemies, or the condition of the child. Security was at an all time high, as rumors of you working for some enemies were still circulating.   
"Jarivs!" she yelled as she ran into an elevator, "Take me to wherever they are."   
The system knew exactly who she was talking about, and took her up to the penthouse.   
They were they gathered again, this time tension was high. People wanted to take you down, no matter what the form or cost. You were now a threat.   
"Guys." She said loudly out of breath as she stood in the center of the room, and began to bring up images of an eight year old you.   
Everyone quickly walked over. "What did you find out?" Stark said immediately seeing Skye standing there.   
She bent over with her hands on her knees trying to control her breathing.   
"Hello." Stark said rather annoyed.   
"Give. ME. A .SECOND!" Skye said heaving, as she stood up tall. She brought up pictures of you through out the years that were available, which weren't much, along with pictures of your parents. "These are Agents Cobra and Copperhead, spies for both the American agency and French."   
"Yeah, yeah," Stark said again rather annoyingly.   
"Look, you wanted me to do this, so I can tell you what I found, or I can leave." Skye said annoyed at the fact that Stark acted as such an asshole. At this point Stark was too tired from the last couple of weeks from trying to find you, that he just waved her off and let her continue.   
"This Aspis," she said pulling up a picture of you. Up until that point, no one had seen a photo of your parents, they were just names and legends, they then realized why Skye brought so much importance to this. You looked nothing like either of them. "Aspis, was not their child. Aspis was their mission."


	10. History Lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone! I can't believe that this little idea that came to my head and wouldn't leave until I wrote it done has received so much feed back. 
> 
> This chapter has a lot of Fringe references, I tried my best to explain it for those who haven't seen Fringe. 
> 
> Again, thank you all so much for continuing to read  
> <3 S.B.T.

“Her real parents are Nick Lane and Sally Clark,” Skye continued as she pulled up more photos for everyone to see. “They were part of studies as children, for a drug called cortexiphan. One Doctor Walter Bishop, developed the drug, and set up a lab on the rouse of a children day  care center.” She brought up more documents for everyone to read.

“He believed that everyone was born with potential to do extraordinary things, such as anyone born with the X gene, but we were conditioned over time to ignore such things, and therefore it laid dormant.  He and another scientist by the name of William Bell, developed cortexiphan in an attempt to unlock those dormant powers, with some success. Their experiment was shut down once parents realized what was really going on.”

Holograms of newspaper clippings littered the air, “Nothing went on for a while, and both William Bell and Walter Bishop were not heard from, that was until recent years, where these now,” she brought up photos of children, “are now adults,” now aged photo id’s from different states littered the space, “And their dormant powers were now being triggered.”

She then pulled up newspaper clippings of mysterious deaths, “Some were unable to handle it, having pushed and repressed memories away, and died. Others,” she brought up new clippings, “Developed their powers, and found each other. One person in particular, who began to work with Walter Bishop herself, was one Olivia Dunham. She was one of the children being experimented on herself, and as an adult she is now an FBI agent. Together with her resources and Walter’s help, they try and find the others and help them to control and live with what they have.”

“What is that they have?” Stark asked now intrigued.

“It varies from person to person, the only thing I could find was what was written in the logs when they were children at the daycare center.” She then tapped a very  keys and brought up an image of a handwritten page with names on one side and notes on the others.

“Olivia Dunham displayed pyrokinesis, setting fire to a room one day when she was scared. Simon Phillips developed the ability to read minds, he had to move out to a secluded area in order to keep the voices out. Cameron James displayed the ability to manipulate metal objects. I mean this list goes on and on.”

“What about her parents?” Natasha spoke up.

“Nick Lane, he displayed the ability to ‘throw’ emotions.”

“Throw emotions?” Banner asked now just as perplexed as Stark on this subject.

“Yes, he had the ability to make other people feel what he was feeling, or what he wanted them to feel. When the FBI first found him, he was in a downward spiral, everyone that he came across would kill themselves. And Sally,” she said pulling up a picture of both Nick and Sally up, “She displayed pyrokinetic abilities. Not only could she manipulate fire, she could produce it.”

“Where are they now?” Steve finally spoke up.

Skye took a deep breath as she typed in some keys and brought up obituaries for them along with FBI documents surrounding their deaths. "Dead. 20 years ago, they were taken right under the FBI, and they were experimented on."

"By who?" Natasha asked.

"No one knows, all that’s known is that when they finally found Sally and Nick, they both had completely shut themselves out from the world. When they ran medical examinations on Nick, three nurses killed themselves as he was utterly depressed and unable to control his emotions. Sally had visible signs of having giving birth, and all she could do was repeat the word hope over and over again. One night, Nick came into her room and, well.. ”

Skype pressed a key, and a video popped up, "Baby," the woman whispered as she sat up in her hospital bed, and he walked over. "They're not going to find her," she began to cry, "They're not going to find her." she sobbed over and over again as he held onto her. 

"Hope, we have to hold onto hope." he whispered back as he held onto her. She whispers something in his ear, and he shakes his head. "Baby please do it for me." she sobs. He visibly becomes distraught, and after a moment he nods his head. He sits back onto the hospital bed, closes his eyes as he wraps his arms around her, and within moments she begins to cry, and flames began to engulf them both. When the flames died down, there was nothing left by burn marks on the bed and wall. No bodies, they just had disappeared.

"Well, that's a a dead end." Stark replies bitterly. 

Skye pulled up more documents, at first it appeared like a regular letter where someone was talking about their day, but after the code had been cracked and Skye highlighted the right parts, the message was clear.

Agent Cobra and Copperhead, were to take a child, a female child, from a facility. The letter stated that the child was a female and that she was 'special' born to 'special' parents. They were to retrieve the child on American soil and take back to Europe.

“This can’t be right.” Clint spoke up. “Aspis is 28, not 20.”

“See,” Skye said as she typed away again, “That’s why this took me so long, I thought the same thing, and then I thought about how Copperhead and Cobra were killed. They were too careful, no one had even known what they looked like. Why? None of this made sense, but I continued to dig into the FBI database, and I found this.”

A new letter came up.

“Is that..” Natasha started to say as she read it.

“It’s a letter for surrender.” Skye said as she translated it for everyone to read. “Eight months after they took the girl, they wrote a letter, saying they would surrender, if they would just save the girl. They didn’t say what was wrong, just that she needed to be saved. Which I believe could be an aging problem, what if J.J aging rapidly is not brought on by Loki’s blood, but rather the cortexiphan that she was born with.”

“She would be a natural born product of the cortexiphan, her life span would be different. Her genetics would have it engraved into her, but why now? She never displayed abilities before now.” Banner interjected.

“Well,” Skye says, “That’s where her symptoms comes in, Simmons says that her skin became hard as stone when they tried to draw blood. And a force field came up around her several times during the time that she was pregnant. So I looked into the FBI personnel files, thinking maybe something in there would help, and I found the file on Olivia Dunham herself. Her powers weren’t triggered until she was faced with extreme fear.”

“That’s it!” Natasha says. “Fear!”

“She had been living on her own since 8, she would have experienced fear before now.” Stark retorted.

“No, Natasha’s right.” Havok spoke up. “In all the time I’ve known her, she never showed any fear. Her parents,” he looked at the photos and changed his statement, “Copperhead and Cobra raised her as a spy, as an agent and as an assassin. She never had fear.”

“She wasn’t afraid to die,” Skye states in a matter of fact tone, in regards to the Zaran mission.

“Until the pregnancy.” Bucky added. He remembered how you ran, the look in your eyes when you found out. That was fear.

Fear was indeed the trigger, and it was only a matter of time, before you realized that you were what you hated most in the world.

\--

You sit in a chair in a corner of the house, staring at JJ. If you weren't seeing it with your own two eyes, you would have laughed it off. But you looked it up. In the 8 weeks that you have been gone, he is now a walking babbling two year old. 

You don't know how this is possible, nor do you want to believe it. The infant is now two years old. It just isn't possible, but anger replaces your confusion. What did those freaks do to him!  As you think about unspeakable things that those bastard could have done to you, or to your son, he begins to babble as he walks over to you.  Oh god. A son. You have a son. You still have to come to terms to that everyday. But this is ridiculous. Five years of your life gone. 

Half way through his journey he falls and hits his knee on the floor, and cries begin to escape him. "Oh god." you say as you stand up. You have no idea what to do. Do you pick him up? Do you leave him be? Do you stick a bottle in his mouth? 

As if reading your mind, the child outstretches his arms towards you. You're reluctant at first, not wanting to make such a bond with him. But after another minute of the crying, and the face, oh god the faces he would make, you finally give in. 

Instantly, as soon as he is up in the air and into your arms, the child begins to smile, and coo again. "Alright." you say as you set him back down, "Off you go." 

He smiles and continues to walk to his destination which you now realize wasn't you. Instead, he continues walking towards the wall and once he reaches it, he lets himself plop  down onto his bottom, and points to a place in the wall as he looks at you. 

You just shake it off, and are about to walk away to the kitchen, but he begins to cry again. You turn and see him continue to lift his tiny finger at the wall again, at a small crack in the wall. 

"What?" you say with your patience wearing thin. "You didn't get hurt, what's wrong?" 

He just continues to cry and points to the crack at the wall again. "Okay," you huff, as you being to make your way over to him, which at that point he stops to cry, and smiles up at you.  You get on your hands and knees in front of him and stare at the crack, it's just a crack in the tile just like all the rest. 

"It's just a crack in the wall." you say at him and stare into his eyes, but he just points again. "What you want me to pull the tile off the wall?" 

He just smiles. You huff and sit on the floor next to him. How dare he make demands out of you, especially something as ridiculous as removing the tile from the wall. "Why?" you argue, which he replies with tears and crying. "Okay." You say defeated, "Okay I'll do it. Just stop crying." 

You get up and get a knife from the kitchen, before sitting back down next to him and sticking it into the crack making it bigger until the tile finally comes off. "Well whatta you know." you say to yourself as you see that there's a small hole in which small notebook was inside. 

JJ simply smiles, gets up and begins to wobble away as you sit there and open book. Immediately you recognize the writing, it's your mothers writings. You had seen enough mission notes to recognize Copperheads writing anywhere, and you began to read. 

_Is it possible to grow a conscious after so long? To have your way of life shattered by a simple decision? A decision you make everyday, without a second thought?_

_Just another mission. That's what we convinced ourselves it was, just another mission. Until it woke up and cried._

_I can see my end coming. I should have known I would have to die sooner or later, but never for a child. Let alone a child that isn't mine. But god damn it, she is mine now. And if I have to die for her, so be it._


	11. Florence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry it took me so long to finish up this chapter. Thank you all for reading! Please let me know what you like or dislike. 
> 
> <3 S.B.T.
> 
> PS SOME SMUT  
> YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

The house was in shambles, as were you. You’ve been lied to your whole life. You don’t even know what to do. Within two months, your life had fallen apart and shattered. Everything you once knew was a lie. You are stuck with a child that is yours, that you did not know, and won’t stop aging. Either way it’s time to leave this town before people suspect things. After packing the bare essentials, a change of clothes for you, a change of clothes for JJ, and some cash that you had piled up, you burn it down.

You burn the house down. There’s another safe house in Florence that you could stay at, but you had to leave now.

\--

Bucky left the tower while they all planned, he knew how to find you. He listened to you for years talk about the constellations that you would see from your bedroom window, stars that your parents helped you identify. He knew just where to look for you.

\--

Your eyes are closed, you’re slowly drifting out of the dream world into consciousness as you feel a hand travel the length of your naked body. You smile and don’t open your eyes, daring not to break this moment. Your skin begins to warm up with the gentle caresses the hand makes as it slips in between your legs, and a mouth begins to plant kisses on the back of your neck, causing a moan to slip out of your throat. As the fingers plummet into you can’t help but roll onto your back and hold onto the sheets below you as you buck your hips up towards them, and you hear him groan next to you. But you dare not open your eyes, he never initiated before and you’re going to let this take it’s course.

Suddenly, the fingers are gone, and you begin to think it’s over when you feel the weight of his body on top of you. His breath is ragged with anticipation and a smirk spreads across your face, you can’t see him, but you can imagine his eyes on fire with desire. He settles himself in between your legs and with a swift thrust he’s in you. You reach up and blindly look for something to anchor yourself to, until you feel his hands on either side of your head holding him up, you wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him, but not without nibbling on his bottom lip, and you’re rewarded with deep groan vibrating from deep within his throat, as he thrusts harder.

You plant your feet into the mattress and with a swift movement you lift your hips to meet his, and it turns him feral. He can feel his own release coming, and reaches between you both to help you get to yours.

“Fuck.” you moan as you throw your head back further into your pillow if that’s even possible, and  you feel his teeth scrape your neck as he leaves passionate kisses, giving you that last push you needed to get over the edge and feel yourself spasm around his girth, and that was just all he needed to reach his climax as well.

He’s careful to keep himself up to prevent from crushing you under his weight, and you appreciate it. No one had even bothered to do that for you. You feel a tender kiss placed upon your lips, and you finally let your eyes slowly open. “Good morning,” the blue eyed man with the metal arm says.

You yank up, sitting straight up in bed, covered in sweat, breathing hard. Did you just have a sex dream about one of the people back at the tower? But how could it be a dream, it felt just a memory. The way his hands glided across your skin, the way he kissed you.

“Mommy?” you turn look to your left and find JJ standing there.

“Hey,” you say to the now four year old standing in front of you, and make a quick mental note that you have to leave Florence soon. Two months was long enough, soon people would begin to question his sudden growth from 2 to 4 in the last two months.

“Do we really have to leave?” he asked reading your mind, and you shook your head as you scooted over and patted the bed next to you. You were still scared about how he could read your mind, and quickly began thinking about the route out of town that you preferred. You pat the empty spot next to you. 

“Yes, you know why.”

He simply nodded as he climbed in and snuggled in, “I know.”

“Another nightmare?” you ask as you wrap the blanket around him and snuggle him in. Being maternal, something you thought you would never have to be, or that you thought you could do, but here you were. 

He nodded, “The bad man, who hurt you, he’s coming for me.”

You simply dismiss his fear, it is after all just a nightmare, “No one will get you as long as I’m alive,” you say and soon he drifted off to sleep, but you stayed awake thinking about the blue eye man with the metal arm.

\--

“We need to take them now!” Zaran booms at Loki as they watch over you and JJ make your way through Florence on your way out of town.

“Patience,” Loki said.

“It’s been four months, I am tired of being patient.”

Loki spotted the man he was waiting for in the crowds of people closing in on you, and he smiled.

“Send some of your men in to get her and the child.” Loki simply said to his partner.

“Finally!” Zaran pulled out a cellphone and dialed a number before giving a command to one of his men.

\--

You pulled a hat low on JJ’s head, “Now what’s your name?”

“Elliot.” he replied as he held onto your hand, even for a four year old, he was intelligent, but worry still consumed you. What were you going to do? Would he age until he died? Would he stop aging soon?

“Mommy?” he asks reading you mind, and you begin to think of something else. You think of the route, and the meeting spot in case you get separated, and knives. For some unknown reason you think of knives.

“Lets’ get going.” you say as you take his hand and begin to make your way out of town. You both continue without interruption when all the sudden you begin to realize how empty the street is becoming, and the pit in your stomach lets you know that something is about to go down.

“JJ,” you whisper as you think about him running away to a safe spot, and the child simply squeezes your hand, letting you know that he knows what you’re thinking.

“Aspis, you’re coming with us.” a man says as he walks up in front of you, and you soon realize two more are standing behind you.

You laugh, as you put JJ to your right side, and in your head you think, _When I take his gun run to the right,_ and again he squeezes your hand to let you know that he knows what you want. “What makes you think that?”

The man raises his right hand which is wielding a gun and aims it at your chest as he walks up closer to you. _Meet me at the basilica san lorenzo,_ you command in your head, and quickly think of the roads that lead that way. _It’s full of tourist, attach yourself to a couple and blend in, I'll meet you in an hour in front of it._

You take a slight step to your left to stay on the outside of the gunmen’s body, JJ takes a slight step to the right, waiting for the moment that he has to run. As soon as your right hand reaches out, JJ runs, the two men behind you start to charge after him, but they don't get far.

You grab the armed mans right wrist with your right hand, quickly step to your left so you are now behind him, snap his arm back as you hook your left arm around his neck, and snap it back so hard that his body goes lifeless in your arms, as you let him fall, you grab the gun from his limp arm, and shoot the other two trying to chase after JJ dead.

Quickly a commotion breaks out and some people begin to run around in fear, and more men come out after you. You hear someone scream your name, and you turn around to see the blue eyed man there, making his way toward you. You should’ve known that the freaks were behind this. You raise your gun about to shoot him, when someone else behind you that you ignored, wraps his arms around your torso.

“Aspis!” the blue eyed man yells as he takes a knife out and flings it through the air, you feel the arms around you go limp, and you turn to see the knife in the center of your assailant's head, as he falls to the floor. Another man comes up to you and you quickly yank the knife out of the man’s skull and begin to defend yourself, with skills you don’t even remember you had. Wait, were these skills even yours? When did you learn to wield a knife like this?

As the man grabbed the wrist of the hand that you held the knife in, you swung it in the air and caught it in your free hand stabbing him just underneath the ribs, and twisting it to make sure that you caused enough damage. As you look around, most of the assailants are either backing away, or attacking the man with the metal arm.

You take this, this is your moment to leave. He can handle yourself, but you see one charging behind him with a gun aimed at his head and you can’t help but feel a certain need to help him. “Fuck me.” you mutter to yourself as you run over, hook your legs around the outstretched arm, snap it back, and take the gun from him. “Watch your back.” you say as you give him his knife back, and take down one more assailant.

In the middle of him taking down two assailants, you finally leave. You run as fast as you can. Why did you just help him?

Somewhere within you, a small voice says you know why. But you shake it away as you look into your reflection in a shop window and clean your face up, tie your hair up, before making your way out to the streets and on your way to the basilica to make sure that JJ is okay.

\--

Bucky looked around at the body count and began to search for you. Why would you help him and not stick around? Did you even remember who you were? If you didn’t why would you have helped? A million question run through his head, but then he remembers the way you fought with the knife, and the way you took down the man that was about to shoot him. Those are skills you learned from him and from Natasha. Even though you can’t completely remember, he knows that slowly things are sinking in.

\--

Loki lets a slight chuckle out.

“I just lost half of my men!” Zaran yells at Loki. “You said that this would help us bring down the Avengers, not kill my men.”

“Can you really be so blind? Can you not see what is going on before you.”

Zaran turns around his anger blinds him as he looks at his men dead, or wounded on the floor. He takes a moment to think about what happened. And he slowly begins to realize what happened.

“Aspis will do anything to protect the child, and Agent Barnes will do anything to protect her, even if she doesn’t remember him. If he’s here on his own, that means he went rougue, they are divided, they don’t know how to proceed.”

“And that, will be our key to bringing down our mutual foe.”

Zaran begins to laugh. “Forgive me for ever doubting you. Now.” he says as he stands up straight and walks over to Loki and faces him. “What is our next move?”

“Patience.” Loki let out a slight chuckle with a smirk on his face. “Patience.”

 


	12. Almeria City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this story! I am so sorry that I didn't update sooner, I was so busy. But I'm back! Please let me know what you do or do not like. Again thank you all for reading this story! It means a lot to me. Let me know what you think, either here or over at sketchbookthingz.tumblr.com 
> 
> <3 S.B.T.

"How dare you go out without orders. You are now confined within the bus. " Director Coulson all but yells at Bucky. The team had finally picked him up in Europe trying to make his way to you.  

"But she's remembering. I need to find her, help her." Bucky pleaded, as it took off the ground. "I'm the only other person who understands what she is going through." 

"Because she knows how to kill men?” Coulson says with venom that they are even having this conversation. “Surprise she always has. It is her specialty In fact, in the past, before us, her specialty was bedding them, getting what she needed, and then killing them. She just perfected it.”

Bucky clenched his fist in anger, containing everything as much as he could. He hated it when people brought up your past, you both had worked hard to get past your sordid pasts, for it to be brought up like if it was nothing to others. A cross, a burden, a stigma that you both would have to carry for the rest of your lives.

But right now, standing in front of Couslon and Agent May, he would have to comply, if he wanted to see you again. 

\---

You sit in a chair overlooking the beach as JJ frolics, you’re always glancing around, on vigilant watch. After two months of running, you had settled in Almeria City for the past two weeks. Almeria City was the perfect place to get away, enough tourist and locals, it was busy enough so you and JJ would go unnoticed when having to buy new supplies, and you knew just the right enough of spanish to get by. Smiling, you watch JJ run back and forth at the shoreline, he’s almost seven now, and panic fills you. You don’t know who to talk to, who to reach out to, if there is even anyone out there who could help.

As he bends over to pick up something up he spots in the sand, you do another scan up and do the coastline of all the people populating it with you. When a man stands in front of you. “Hello,” he says with a grin on his face, sunglasses reflecting your blank stare back at you.

“Sorry,” you say quickly, “Not interested.”

“Oh that’s okay.” he says as he sits next to you. “That’s not what I’m here for, Aspis.”

Your hand quickly shoots into your pocket for your gun, when he chuckles, “Are you really going to pull a gun on me in front of all these people? Those freaks from the tower would know exactly where you are.”

Anger arises in you, you know he’s right, but you also don’t like that he knows you, and you don't know him. “I have information that could help you.” he says, as he takes his sunglasses off. “Or rather help that son of yours.” He points with his glasses down at the shoreline towards JJ.

You sit silently with your finger still on the trigger of the gun in your pocket, as you study his body language.

“I’m an old friend of your parents. I knew you when you were smaller than him.”

 _What? How? You don’t remember him_. But then again, there were many things you didn’t remember, like the last five years of your life. “What do you want?” you demand through clenched teeth.

“Nothing, I promised your parents I would look over you, when they went to Boston for your cure. But I didn’t do a very good job at that, lost you.”

 _Boston? Care for me? What did this man know? What was going on with you life?_ “Cure?” you couldn’t help but say.

He looks up at you with icy blue eyes, that seem to blue to be human. They seem to look right through you. “I worked with your parents on various,” he takes a moment before saying, “ _projects_. Word within the networks say that he suffers from the same thing you did. The same thing your parents went to Boston to cure before they died.”

Anger engulfs you. How dare he think he knows anything. But more, you are angered that word within networks were true. Soon, people would descend on you. People looking for revenge. They would hurt JJ to get to you as well. A sense of panic fills you, if he could track you, surely soon they all would show. You stand up and look for JJ, who is still playing in the water.

Looking down at the man you say, "Thank you for the information.” His eyes don't leave yours for a second as his lips curl up into a grin and he chuckles

"Ehehe,no problem, anything for an old friend."  

You walk down the shore, and mentally begin to call to JJ, who quickly looks up at you with panic on his face. _No, act natural._ On cue, as you walk hand in hand between all the people, he begins to talk to you about some shell he found. While he does, in your head you tell him the plan, you have to leave for America. Once inside the hotel room, he begins to frantically pack as you keep watch and make sure that no trace has been left of you.

Sure, that man might have given you information, but with everything going on in your life, you had no idea if this was a trap or not. What you did know was that you needed to get JJ out of here. And now. In less than an hour, JJ and you have packed all that is needed and nothing else.

“Where are we going?” he asks as he puts his sweater and baseball cap on, ready for the travel as he has been since your journey began. Two weeks was long enough, he thinks to himself. He had gotten used to the moving around, and actually seemed to enjoy it.

"Boston.” You simply say as you look to make sure that there is no trace of you left. "We're going to Boston."  

\--

As you make your way out of the hotel, the man stands across the street and watches you and JJ get into a taxi. As it disappears, Zaran walks up to him, "Did it all go to accordingly?" 

The man laughs as his mirage falls away and reveals Loki, "She's back on track." 

 


	13. Boston

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank you all for continuing to read my story, even though I didn't update in a while, I will try to update it more often now. I have the next chapter started, will finish it and post i soon.  
> You can always find me over at sketchbookthingz.tumblr.com  
> Again, thanks, you all have no idea how much it means to me.  
> <3

After making it to Boston, you grasped at straws for anything. You listened to the networks and you even asked old contacts, but nothing. Finally one day you heard rumors about mad scientist operating out of the college. With nothing else to go off of, you  decide to investigate it. At worst you wasted some time, at best you finally were going to be able to cure JJ of whatever it was he had.  

You look around. _Is this really where you're supposed to be? This was a college, not a respected clinical science or even government facility.  This was supposed to be your saving grace?_

JJ pulls you out of your thoughts as he holds your hand. "It'll be okay." He says, you simply nod and continue to walk down the halls when you spot a blonde woman out of place. She was government official you just knew it. She carried herself as such, dark clothes hair pulled back tightly and neatly, posture that of a soldier, and you could make a faint outline of her weapon on her waist.

You instructed JJ to wait for you at this  location as you followed her. If this was a trap, you were willing to let them take just you, not both of you. You follow the agent as she walks into a room, which you could swear you could hear a cow mooing. What the hell was going on?

Nothing in your life seemed to be making sense. You stood just outside the door listening to what was going on.  You heard the, talk about something called fringe division that peaked your interest but before you could listen to anything else, you feel the nuzzle of a gun on your back. "Lift your hands slowly above your head.” a male voice says. 

"I'm not looking for trouble, just trying to find some help," you say sweetly as you do as your told and put your hands behind your head.

"Turn around slowly,"he says as you feel the nuzzle remove its place from your back and you bring to turn to see another agent this one was a male with glasses.   
"I just got lost looking for directions."

"Shut up, and walk inside." He said as he continued nodded towards the door behind you. You have the skills to easily disarm him and take his gun, but you take this as an opportunity to look inside. You simply nod and walk, when the door opens you were surprised to find that you weren’t imagining it. There really was a cow to the side of your, and in front of you was an elaborate laboratory set up, huge machines, and computers. The blonde stood there with some other man, who did not hold himself as an agent just a regular person.

“Lincoln?” the blonde asked as she made her way towards you and him, hand on her hip, on her weapon ready to draw no doubt.

“I found her outside trying to get into the lab.” the man behind you says.

“I got lost, I was trying to find my way back.” you quickly rebuttal.

“Sit down!” he says as he leads you to a stool near one of the counters.

“Fine, fine,” you say doing as you’re told, and take a seat on top of the stool. “Look I’m sitting.”

“What’s your name?” The blonde asks as she sits next to you.

“Jaime.” you lie.

“Jaime,” she nods. “I’m Olivia. This is Lincoln,” she says nodding the man now putting his gun in its holster, “and that’s Peter.” she nods at the other man that was standing on the other side of the counter from you now. “So tell me,” she leans slightly forward. “What were you looking for.”

Before you could answer, someone else walked through the door.

“Hey guys, I got everyone coffee,” she said as she walked in and froze when she saw the serious expressions on everyone's face, and then looked at you. “What’s going on?” she said as assessed the situation.

“Astrid, this is Jamie.” Olivia simply said. “She was lost.”

“Jaime?” Astrid said as she set the coffee’s on a table and made her way over to you, and looked at your face. "You look so familiar." She muttered to herself.

You began to get slightly nervous, "I just have one of those faces. I just got lost."

"You've met her before?" Olivia ignored you and asked the woman the question again.

“I can’t so for certain, but I recognize her.” she mutters as she continues to stare at your face. Have you met her before, maybe she could help you.

“I did lose my memory a couple of months ago.” you admit. “Maybe we have, I just can not recall.”

“Huh,” Peter says. “That’s awfully convenient.”

You ignore him, when she suddenly says, “Well my name is Astrid.”

Since you seem familiar to her you decide to be honest with her, maybe she could help “My name is (y/n)”

“What happened to Jamie?” Lincoln scoffs to the side of you but you ignore it.

Astrid’s eyes widen at the sound of your name, and she smiles. “I am so happy to finally meet you,” she exclaims as she hugs you. You just sit still unaware of what to do.

“Astrid?” Peter asks with raised eyebrows. “What’s going on?”

“(y/n) parents came to Walter years ago for help. I only saw pictures of you. You were so small.” Astrid simply said as she continued to smile at you. “You helped my parents?” you asked, knowing that she was talking about Copperhead and Cobra. _Parents? Okay, they don’t know who they really were or who I really am._

Astrid nodded, she then informed everyone about the cortexiphan that used to run in your veins and your accelerated growth rate and how a scientist named Walter helped your parents produce a type of antidote to slow it down.

“So she was one of the trial children?” Olivia asked.

“Why didn’t Walter tell us?” Peter asks

“I don’t know.” Astrid responds.

“Is he here? Walter?” you ask now with patience growing thin.

The three looked at each other with woresome glances. “He’s actually missing.” Astrid says. “He’s been missing for a while now.”

Your hopes dashed, you let yourself slump on the stool. “Well than I guess I should go.”

“Wait.” Olivia says “We could help you. We all worked closely with him. If you just let us know what it is you need.”

You shake your head. “Sorry.”

Before anyone could say anything else, the door opened again. This time JJ stood there. “Yes they can.”

 _I told you to wait for me!_ you scold him mentally.   
“I’m sorry.” he simply says.

_Please wait for me outside._

“No, they can do it.” JJ insists.

“You two communicate telepathically?” Peter asks as he stand between the two of you watching the interactions between you and your son.

JJ simply nods, “I read her thoughts, just as I have read all of yours.” he says to them. “They can help me.” he says to you.

You sigh as you stand up and take JJ hands in yours, and lead him towards the three who wait to hear what you have to say. Putting JJ in front of you, you realize how big he’s grown, he is almost half as tall as you. You put your hands on his shoulders.

 _Are you sure?_ you ask one last time.

JJ just looks up at you and nods. You nod back.

“This is my son JJ, and he needs help.”

“Help how so?” Olivia asked.

“How old do you think I am?” JJ asked with a smile on his face.

“Maybe 9 no older than 10.” Peter answered.

“He’s eight months old.” you says quickly, a bit angry that JJ could just start this conversation as if it was a game.

Everyone looked at the two of you in disbelief, except Astrid. She just stepped forward and shook JJ’s hand. “Hello JJ, I’m Astrid.”

“I know,” he simply said as he smiled and shook Astrid’s hand. “You’re the person who helped my mom.”

Astrid simply nodded and took a step back. “And hopefully we can help you too.”

The next hour was spent looking for Walter’s notes, and Astrid remembering everything that had happened. You just held onto JJ, was it really worth it? The man that had helped you, this Walter was no where to be seen. Could they really be as good as they made it seem?  
“Yes.” JJ whispered.

“What?” you said snapping out of your thoughts.

“Yes, he.” he said pointing at Peter, who was currently trying to make a serum out of a sample of JJ’s blood. “is Walter’s son. She,” he pointed at Olivia, “is his wife, and she was also part of cortexiphan trials as a child. She,” he pointed to Astrid. “Was Walter’s lab assistant, she helped him with every single experiment. They can do it.”

“And him?” you ask nodding towards Lincoln.

“He got here by accident, something killed his partner and he ended up here. He’s great agent, he’ll do whatever it takes.”

You simply nod.

Another hour later, you being to feel tired, and hungry. You can’t remember when was the last time you ate. JJ just sat up in a lab chair as they drew some more blood and tried some trial runs.

“Hey,” you heard a voice say next to you.

“Hey.” you said back seeing it was Lincoln.

“I’m going to go get some food for everyone, can you come with me? I’ll need an extra pair of hands.”

You looked at JJ who just smiled and nodded at you.

“Okay.” you said as you followed the agent out.

As you reached the diner, he gave an order to the person behind the counter. And led you to an empty table to wait for the food.

“So,” Lincoln said.

“So,” you mirrored back taking in your surroundings.

“What will you do once JJ is cured?” he asks.

You shrug. “Don’t know. Why?”

“Because,” he says as he leans forward across the table and then says in something between a whisper and a shout. “Speaking as an FBI agent, I know who you are.”

You turn around and look at him, poker face on, no sign of nervousness. “Of course, (Y/N). Everyone knows. I was there when I told you all my name.”

“No.” he says as he sits up straight and now says in his normal voice. “I know who you are Aspis.”

\--

At the tower two teams had been made, a team who was looking to hunt you down, and another that was trying to find any information of where you could be.

Bucky was left at the tower, everyone agreeing that he was more of a hinderance than an asset after what happened in Europe.

He was in the training room yet again, when Skye came running in.

“Bucky,” she said out of breath. “I got something.”

He stopped what he was doing and walked over to her, as she pulled it up on her tablet.

“An FBI agent in Boston.” she said as she took in another deep breath, “Looked her name up.”

“Boston?” Bucky asked incredulous, that was nearby, he could drive out to you.

But an FBI agent ? A thousand scenarios ran through his mind. Where you captured? Arrested?

“Should I tell the others?” Skye yelled after you.

“No.” he snapped, “Give me a day before you tell them.”

He continued on his way out. Back to you.


	14. Fringe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long, but here it is a new chapter. I made it longer than I usually make these. And the next chapter should be up by the end of this week.  
> Thank you all for continuing to read and comment. You have no idea how much that means to me.  
> And you can always come over and bug me on tumblr.  
> sketchbookthingz.tumblr.com
> 
> <3 SBT

You know better than to play it dumb with him, you cross your arms and smile sweetly at him. “Than you must know that I could kill you and have no one know about it for another two days. So what do you want?” Lincoln shifts a bit uncomfortably in his seat and looks back at you with a seriousness in his eyes.

“You’re wanted in connection to numerous assassinations. You need to answer for what you’ve done.”

You could easily grab a fork and stab it in between his ribs upright, puncture a lung and let him sit there to choke on his own blood. But you were having a bit of fun with him squirming, and you knew deep down no harm could come to him. His team was helping JJ. They were your only hope.  “And what are you going to do? Turn me in?” You say with your old habits kicking in, as you lean back with a flirty smile on your face. Your voice drops into an almost husky tone. “Are you going to handcuff me and take me away.”

“Look, I don’t care that you are under the precious Avengers protection!” He said raising his voice slightly.

So I was with the Avengers. You take this opportunity to learn as much as you can about the time that you don’t remember from the agent. “Oh but you know how long I’ve had that protection ,what makes you think that you could take me?”   
“You think that just because for some unknown reason they decided to take you in five years ago, you would be able to escape what you have done. It doesn’t work like that.”

Five years? You spent the last five years with them. All that they tried to tell you was true then. Your emotions betray you, as your face becomes solemn, and he looks at you confused. Why was this news to you? He then questions you.

“What did you do for them?”

“I don’t know.”  
“Why did you join them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why are you not there with them,instead of here.”

You have had it enough with his questions so you stand up and make your way out of the diner without another word. He doesn’t chase after you, as expected. That’s when Lincoln realized that you weren’t lying about forgetting who you were. Something inside of him pitied you, but his duty overtook it. He didn’t chase after you, and waited for the lunches.

 

Back in the lab the team worked feverishly to help JJ, and to unlock the secret that Walter had unlocked years before.  You paced around taking in the surroundings, being of no use to anyone right now. Not really paying attention to anything, just trying to keep busy, trying to ignore the thoughts swirling in your head. Does that mean that the dreams I have of the metal armed man, are real? And Alex? That meant he really was a mutant, a freak, someone like them. So you worked with them. You lived with them. For five years. But, you look back at JJ, he was looking at you he knew what the question on your mind was. Who was his father?   He looked at you with a knowing glance, as if there was something that he himself was not telling you. But what.

“That’s a deprivation tank.” A  voice snaps you out of your thoughts. You turn around and see Lincoln standing there now, pointing at something to the left of you. Without waiting for a response from you, he continues.  “It helps people unlock things in their head. Mostly memories.”

“It doesn’t always work as it should,” Olivia was now standing next to you both. “I should know.”

You look at her with questioning glance.

“It was a long time ago,” she sighed as her hands went into the pockets of her slacks. “I used it to try to help me remember things. It became difficult. It’s not something you can control. It bleeds into your everyday life, and some things trigger it. It felt like living two lives, but not living either one at the same time.”

“But you remembered?”

Olivia nods, “It was a hard journey. But I remembered. If you really think it will help you, we could help you. But it comes with it’s side effects.”  You looked at Lincoln who stared at you with a knowing glance. He knew that you didn’t remember things. But how much about it did he know? “If you think that you need it, you can use it. But like I said it has it’s got it side effects and it might not work the way you think it will.”

"How much time were you trying to remember."

"A short time couple of months. How much are you trying to remember? "

You think about it before being honest. “Six years.”

“Six years?” Lincoln asks taken aback. “So you don’t even remember,” he says about to point to JJ, but you cut him off with a glare, and knowing that right now you needed it, you coldly respond.

“No. I don’t. A lot of things have happened, which I have to come to terms with, and I need help.”

You look back at JJ, who is paying attention to something that Astrid and Peter are explaining to him, and turn your attention back to Lincoln and Olivia and nod. “I want to use it.” You don’t care about the side effects. Knowing anything, would be better than knowing nothing.

Olivia simply nods. “Just know, because it’s a bigger chunk of time, the side effects might be greater.”

“I want to do it.” you said in a stern voice, letting everyone know that this decision was final. Olivia nodded her head, and left to began to prepare the tank, as you stood staring at it. This could be it, this could help you remember everything that you had forgotten, who JJ’s father was, why you were at the tower to begin with, and the man with the metal arm. Who was he really to you? The questions never seemed to end. When you turned around JJ was looking at you with an intensity, you had not seen before, he seemed worried. You just smiled and nodded your head at him in reassurance, he just nodded, not returning the smile.

 

An hour later things were arranged, and you stood in your underwear. “Tilt your head forward,” Olivia said as she began to part your hair to reveal your neck. Peter continued to work with JJ, as Olivia and Astrid began to focus on you.

“I still think that this is not the way to go about it.” Astrid said as she began to place electrodes on your abdomen and body.

“This is an anesthetic,” Olivia said, as you felt a needle puncture the skin on the back of your neck, as Astrid finishing placing the electrodes, she grabbed a two pronged device attached to multiple wiring and handed it to Olivia, who was done injecting you. “Take a deep breath in. This will hurt.” Olivia warned you.

As soon as she heard an audible breathe in, she pushed with all her might into the back of your neck. A stinging sensation took over, you you double forward in pain, but before you could even reach halfway to the floor, Lincoln was in front of you. Arms around you, your face in his shoulder. “I got you.” he said as he helped you stand up. As much as you didn’t like him, you appreciated this. Nothing had ever prepared you to get something jammed into the back of your neck, and the fact that he helped you regain your composure was much appreciated. As you took another breath in the pain began to leave your body and you began to stand up straight. “You okay?” he asked looking into your eyes, you nodded and gave him half a smile, which he returned. Nodding, he slowly let go of your arms. Astrid then continued to hook the electrodes up to clips to monitor your vital signs.

Once those were placed, Olivia came back with another syringe and held onto your left arm. “This is to help your mind relax, and open up. Once I inject this, there’s no going back. We’ll place you in the tank right away. Are you ready?”

You nod, and with that Olivia puncture the skin on the bend of your arm and pushes the plunger in. As the drug begins to course through your circulatory system, you begin to feel more relaxed, almost drugged. But you had never been drugged before. Why would you say that?

“Here we go.” Olivia says as she stands up and takes your arm to help you up. Your legs feel so heavy, and you find it hard to walk the five steps in front of you to the tank. Lincoln takes up your other side and help Olivia keep you up and into the tank. You can’t even feel if the water is cold or warm, you just feel it there. The drugs were working. As the placed you carefully into the water to leave you floating. All thought were beginning to leave your brain. You felt relaxed, you felt like you were floating, and begin to feel tired. Once they made sure that you were fine, they closed you into the tank. Total darkness began to encompass you, and you began to let it.

“What are these?” Lincoln asked as Olivia sat down in front of some monitors. “They monitor her  brain rhythms, an ekg monitor, and vital signs. ” She said as she pointed to each one. “This one,” she said as she turned it on, showed a night vision version of you floating in the tank. “Monitors her in the tank.”

“Now what?” he asks as he looks back up at the tank, and then down at the monitors.

“Peter and Astrid continue to work on JJ.”

“What about her?” he said pointing to the monitor that showed your face, which was relaxed ,as your eyes were closed as if you were fast asleep.

“For her. Nothing. We wait.”

\-- 

“Why must we wait?” Zaran groaned again as he pestered Loki.

“We must wait until they heal the child.” Loki spoke in his calm demeanor. “Soon everything will be in place.”

\--

An hour later JJ was finishing up with Peter, after successful tries, when your heart monitor began to spike. 

"Olivia." Lincoln said as he turned on the monitor that showed you in the tank. Inside you began to thrash your head side to side, as you groaned slightly. 

"Heart rate is a bit high, but stable," she said as she checked your EKG, and moved on to see the next monitor. "Vital signs, stable." Then turned to check your brain waves, "And there she goes." 

"What?" Lincoln asked as he looked at the monitor.

"She's remembering." 

Behind them, a sound loud thrashing of JJ caught their attention as well. He began to yell in pain at the last infusion. Suddenly, you're vitals began to raise as well. You both were going into shock. 


	15. The lab and the hologram

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, regardless of how often or how little I update.  
> I just started a new job so the next chapter will not be out for another couple of weeks. But I will have it up by October.  
> As always you can bug me over at sketchbookthingz.tumblr.com
> 
> <3 sbt

“Get her out of there!” Lincoln said as your vitals were raising extremely high.

“We can’t!” Olivia said as she snapped the tank door shut, on top of Lincoln’s hands. “She needs to stabilize and come out of it on her own, or it will break her mental stability.” Lincoln looked around to find Astrid to agree with him, but she was busy with Peter as JJ convulsed. Peter held the child down trying to keep him from hurting himself, as Astrid began inserting something else into the tubes connected to him. He looked back at Olivia, and finally he seceded.

For the next ten minutes he watched as Peter and Astrid began calmed down JJ, and began to run a couple of test on his blood, while you continued to thrash in the tank. After another five, you finally began to settle in the water, and vitals began to stabilize. Olivia nodded at Lincoln, who was awaiting to open the hatch to the tank, once given the signal, he quickly opened it up and pulled you out. “Hey,” he said as he removed the clip from the back of your neck, and you began to shiver.

“We did it!” Peter exclaimed. “We did it!” Lincoln didn’t turn around to see what he was talking about, as he took his coat off to wrap around you, while Olivia fetched a robe for you.

“I saw them. I saw them.”

“Who?” Lincoln asked. “Are you okay?”

“I saw them.” was all you continued to chant. A coldness began to run through you now that the drugs were working their way out of your system. You became very aware of how cold the lab was, and began to take in your surroundings. Where were you, you turned around and saw JJ sitting in a chair, and it slowly began to come back to you. He was your son, that all you remembered right now. Olivia came over and helped you into a robe, seeing her face you began to remember what happened the last couple of months. Did that tank fail? You didn’t remember anything past waking up at the tower. The only thing that you remembered from being in the tank was your parents. It felt like you had relieved your entire infancy. There was still a gray cloud fog over everything in your life. The things you needed to know. You remembered, stopping a bullet as a child, but what did that mean?  

Once they tied the robe around you, you walked over to JJ and smiled. He looked at you slightly confused, and you gave him a confused look back. “You’re thinking too much, it’s flooding my head.” He said softly, gently.

“I’m sorry,” you said as you began to stop running a million question through your head and began to focus on one singular thing. Him. “How are you feeling?” You say as you push back some of the hair that has gotten in his face and tuck it behind his left ear.

“A bit tired, but good.”

“Good,” you smile at him, which he returns.

“We can leave now.”

“Okay, I’ll get dressed. Where do you want to go?”

Before JJ could even answer you, men began to storm the lab, and you know right away that they were not any government agents. Olivia, Lincoln, Peter and Astrid immediately drew their guns and began to question who they were. As they did you quickly unhooked JJ to the machines and chair that he was in, ** _hide until I tell you to come out_**. He nods and quickly begins to crawl on the floor until he’s out of sight. You stand behind the four agents, ready to fight with them. As you look at the men that stormed the lab you realize who they are, they are the same who followed you in Europe. “Who are you working for? What do you want from me?”  A man walks into the center, and all the sudden a name escapes your lip, "Zaran."

"You remember me? About time girl." He said as he raised sais in his hands. "It would be a shame if you died not remembering who I was." But that was it, wasn’t it, you didn't remember him, at all. Why did that name just come to you? Everything was broken when JJ screamed out in pain. "Stop the voices!" he said as he withered on the floor with his hands to his ears. You were about to run to his side when Zaran attacked you and the other men attacked the team.

“JJ!” you screamed trying to get his attention, trying to get him to block out the voices. But you yourself were caught in a hand to hand combat with Zaran.

As Zaran tried to drive one of the sais into your side, you caught his arm and pulled back his wrist until you heard a crack. “You bitch!” he hissed.

All the sudden things starting to bombard you. A haze began to fill the room and you suddenly were in a hotel room, in a red dress. Were you on a contract? And Zaran was there, yelling the same phrase, as you ran for cover behind a kitchen island, and-

You are rudely yanked back out of the memory as you feel a piercing on your left shoulder. Holding onto it you see that a one of Zaran’s sai’s has successfully pierced it. "Goddamn it!" you exclaimed as you focused on the man in front of you. Swiftly, you grab the wrist holding onto the sai, wrap your legs around the arm, with all your strength, you pull away from him, causing the sia to rip out of your shoulder. With the heel of your feet you dig into his chest, giving one final push against his chest as you feel his arm go limp, with a loud terrifying pop, and him cry out. You tumble to the floor and forward roll away from him and hide behind the testing counter there Lincoln is quickly reloading his gun.

 ** _Take down, don’t kill_ ** a voice tells deep down in your mind tells you, but you shake it off. Of course kill that was what you were raised to do, what the hell is wrong with you, why are you thinking this way? Olivia and Peter provide cover to Astrid who has JJ in her arms, who now has his hands over his ears, crying, running out an open exit. You feel panic fill you, but you know it’s for the best right now. He needs to be safe and away from here.

“Go!” Lincoln hisses at you, as your eyes meet his, he nods at you. You nod, he begins to provide cover for you, and you run with your head down towards the door after Astrid and JJ. Once in the hallway you meet with Astrid who has set JJ down at the end of the hall. He still has his hands over his ears, and tears streaming down his face. “Too many voices.” he mutters over and over. “Hey, hey,” you say in a hushed voice as you get on your knees and put your hands softly on his. Despite everything going on, you begin to do what your father taught you. You clear your head. Nothing but quiet darkness begins to fill your head, and you look JJ in the eye.

“Look at me,” you say softly, and press your forehead to his. “Just read my mind.” He still cries as he tries to concentrate. Behind you Astrid begins to fire her gun to provide cover to the other three left behind in the lab to get them out. JJ flinches at the sounds of gunshots, but you shush him, “Concentrate.” you say as you project the quiet darkness bigger in your mind, trying to reach across to JJ.

As you hear Olivia and Peter make their way into the hallway with Astrid, and provide cover for Lincoln, JJ begins to calm down. He begins to dry his tears, and nods at you in agreement that he is okay now. You smile and sweetly say, “Just keep thinking about that okay.” He nods. You get up and begin to turn your attention to the FBI agents who helped you both. Lincoln finally makes it into the hallway, and closes the door behind him and the five of you begin to try to find anything to barricade the door and give you time to escape. You are all beginning to settle into the fact that you all escaped, a bit of happiness begins to fill you all.

“Here.” Lincoln says as he tears off a piece of his shirt and begins to tie it around your bleeding your shoulder, and hands you his jacket. You were all so busy, that you had forgotten you were only wearing wet underwear and a bathrobe. That now was soaked with blood.

“Thank you,” you say genuinely, as you carefully put on the jacket to keep from harming your shoulder.

The five of you begin to make your way down the hallway back to JJ, who is sitting there still. Staring at the five you. A feeling that things are not right begins to creep in the center of your stomach as you stare at JJ, and begin to realize that he’s not blinking, neither is his chest falling or raising. “JJ!” You scream as you begin to run towards him, the only sound the echos through the hall the sound of your feet slapping the floor, and the shoes of the agents falling suite. You slide onto your knees as you get closer, and your hands run through him.

“What the fuck!” you mutter as you run your hands in the air. It was a hologram. JJ was no longer here. It was just a hologram. A mixture of frustration,anger and worry fill you.

“Oh my,” Astrid exclaims, you all look around trying to find which way someone could have gone, and there was no way anyone could have done it without running past you all. With anger running through you, you make your way back to the barricaded door. The only person who would have answers right now, lies behind this door. You begin to take everything that you all placed in front of the door,and remove it all. “I suggest you all leave now.” you say over your shoulder. Olivia and Peter look at each other, and simply give each other a nod. Astrid stands to the side taking in what you are doing.

“It’s my-” Astrid begins, but you cut her off. “It’s not your fault. Don’t worry.” Astrid simply nods as she steps back with Olivia and Peter.

“No!” Lincoln says, “This is suicide, you can’t go back in there. There has to be another way to get answers. We will find him.”

“Right now, my answers lie behind that door Lincoln. Now go.”

You don’t wait for anyone to answer, or move, you simply remove the last thing, and open the doors. As you do you hear a chorus of noises, some sound like the agents running away, others are the sounds of all the men in the room turning their attention to you. You hear guns, you hear shouts, but you block it all out like your father taught you. You move quickly like your mother taught you. You take the sharpest things you can find on the lab counters and begin to slice your way through all the  henchmen. The blood from your wound, begins to combine with the blood of everyone else's, as you try to make your way to Zaran.

After taking a couple down, you begin to look around and realize that Zaran is gone. He probably has been gone since JJ was gone, and anger begins to surface. You then realize that Lincoln has also been in the room with you, you watch as he ducks behind the counter and reloads, to what seems to be his last clip. Beginning to make your way back to the foolish agent, you take down another man. You sit with your back against the counter. “Why didn’t you leave?”

He shrugs, “Maybe I still want to be the agent that arrests you.”

You let a laugh out, and look at him to see a smile on his face as well.

“We need to leave. He’s not here.” you inform him. You had become rather fond of the persistent agent.

“Ladies first,” he says. You shake your head, and begin to make your way back to the exit, as Lincoln provides you cover. When a new wave of henchmen make their way in, you hear Lincoln begin to struggle with his gun. It jammed. You turn around and see the new men lift their guns and aim at Lincoln. “No!” you yell as you run in front of him, lift a hand up in front of you, as they begin to fire. You don’t know why you did that. _**That was foolish,**_  you hear your mother's voice echo in your mind.

You feel yourself go limp, like when Olivia injected you. Drugged, and you feel Lincoln’s arms around you. “I got you,” he says. You’re dead. You know you’re dead. But as you open your eyes, you see the bullets. They are frozen mid air just inches away from both you. But you are so tired, you let yourself be carried by Lincoln, as a smoke bomb begins to fill the room.

You head bobs as Lincoln runs down the hallways. When you head outside, Astrid pulls up with a  van. “Hurry get in. Get in!” she hurries Lincoln as she opens the back door and runs back to the driver seat. You know it’s broad day light, but the words, “The stars. I knew time would catch up with me,” escape your lips in a mere whisper.   
Lincoln laughs at your statement. “A bullet didn’t even graze you.”

But you feel tired, oh so tired, and close your eyes.

\--

Bucky heard the sounds of a battle, and saw it littered in the halls as he made his way to your last location. He saw some men with guns make their way into a room, and he knew. That was were you were. As he heard them begin to fire, he threw in a smoke bomb. It would provide coverage as he went in. As the smoke cleared and he finished the men that were left, he began to follow the noise down a second hallway at the other end of the lab.

When he made it to the end, he saw a man carrying you in just your underwear, and load you into a van. Before it made it’s way out. He didn't understand why this happened, how it happened, and why JJ wasn't with you. But he somehow knew you were safe. 

He studied at the license plate and made a call to Skye. He would need her help to locate you. He hated that he was this close to having you in his arms, but so far.

\--

“Hello son,” Loki smiled maliciously at JJ.

“You are not my father! What do you want?” JJ asked as he stood in the center of the room. Zaran stood next to the only door, to keep him from making an escape attempt.

“Now, son, is that anyway to greet me.”

“You are not my father! I remember my father. He held me when I cried. He had a cold arm and took care of me. You simply hurt my mother to make me.” JJ replied bitterly.

“Yes,” Loki laughed. “You are intelligent, but you are also something else, that will help your mother help me.”

“And what is that.” JJ spat out, trying to keep calm, trying to let the darkness you had shared with him, continue to give him piece.

“You are now human, and I can hurt you to hurt her. I can torture you slowly for years if that is what it takes, for her to help me accomplish what I need.” With that Loki and Zaran left the room, and JJ sat, trying to mediate trying to bring the darkness that you provided. But instead he began to be filled with thoughts of what his captors would do to him, to get you to help them.


	16. Confusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all or reading Maps, and waiting patiently as I wrote, re-wrote, deleted, and continued to write this story. 
> 
>  
> 
> as always you can find me sketchbookthingz.tumblr.com and please let me know what you think about this chapter. like/dislike.  
> <3 SBT

“Well, does this facade please you?” Loki asked JJ again as he shimmered. This time in front of the kid stood the man he considered his father, the man with the metal arm. His small fist clenched, and the anger he had inherited from you coursed through his veins. This trick was the worst one that Loki had played on him, Loki laughed as he saw how much anger it caused him. 

“How about this one?” The shimmer began again, and this time, transformed into you. This time JJ couldn’t contain his anger and yelled in frustration as he lunged at this form of you, only to be met by the cold floor, and laughter. 

He was still alone in the room that he was imprisoned in. Slowly, he got up from the floor, with tears burning his eyes. Utterly alone in the room, he didn’t know how long he was there for, but it felt like a prolonged time. Unable to sleep, time seemed to go on longer for him. 

Every once in awhile Zaran or Loki would come in and play mind games, but he stayed strong. There was no telling how much longer he would be able to hold on, he felt like he was literally losing his mind. The only thing that kept him going was knowing that you would come for him. 

Once he was certain that he was alone, he crawled out from under the bed, and looked at himself. Smiling, he put a hand on his mirages shoulder, happy that all his practice was starting to pay off. Five seconds later, it disappeared.

“Got to work on making you stay longer.” he muttered to himself. He sighed tiredly, and then retreated to the bed. “Don’t worry, Mom.” he whispered to himself. “I’ll get outta here soon.”   As much as he hated to admit that the man that had imprisoned him was his father, he was going to use that to his advantage. 

\---------------------

Lincoln and Astrid had ditched the van, and took another unmarked car back to his apartment while you were unconscious. When you finally awoke, it was three days after the lab attack. But being awake was horrible. Your head ached and burned from so many things coming at you at once. That you took to trying anything you could do in the apartment to try to get them to slow do.

“Calm down,” Lincoln said as he held onto your shoulders to keep you from pacing his apartment for the millionth time. Shoving him aside, you continued to pace. The need to get out overwhelmed you, and the feeling of being caged filled you. Trapped in the memories that your head was currently trying to burn through. They came and went so fast that you couldn’t make sense of them.

_ “NO!” you hear your mother yell as she lunges for you in front of a gun, only to be perplexed when there are no bullets. Your small hand was lifted in front of you both, you giggled and hugged her. “It’s okay mommy.” you giggled. _

You shook your head, and paced to the other side of the room again. That never happened. Right? “Please stop, sit down.”

“Can you please just leave me alone.” You say as you punch another wall in frustration, blood coming out of the fresh wounds began to drop onto your jeans.

“If you sit down I will go.” You take the t shirt you're wearing off to nurse your wounded hand, and sit down just as another memory burn through you.

_ “I’ll leave with you guys, but I will go by my code name from now on.” Your best friend, partner in crime, and sometimes lover said as he stood in front of you in a weird black and blue suit.  _

_ “Which is?” You ask.  _

_ “Havok.” he answers.  _

“Here.” Astrid's gentle voice snaps you out of your swirling thoughts as she hands you pair of clean clothes. You simply nod at her as you gratefully accept them. Lincoln and Astrid leave you in the bedroom to change, and as you do, more things fill your head. Were they real? Were what they made you think and feel real? You’ve heard of mutants who could plant memories, is that what this was?  As you placed the new shirt that Astrid gave over your head, your hand rubs against your shoulder wound, and think about Zaran.

_ “Bitch!” Zaran spits at you as he advances at you again, this time you're wearing a red dress. In what looked like a house. He charges at you, you catch his left wrist and dodge his attack. a feeling of trying to communicate with someone. With who?  _

Knocking. A knock on the bedroom door makes you snap out of the haze you were in and you got dressed quickly in the jeans and t shirt that Astrid had handed to you. As you headed to the living room, you began to preoccupy your mind with things that mattered, where was JJ? How were you going to get JJ? How did this Zaran fit into everything?  Lincoln is standing in the center of his living room with his hands on his hips. Looking down at his feet,lost in thought. 

Once he noticed you in the room he began to let you know his train of thought. “Do you remember anything about Zaran? I tried running a database on him, but I couldn’t find anything on him.” 

You shake your head. “Nothing?” he asks. You shake your head again. 

“Oh dear,” Astrid said, as she hurried to the bathroom and back.

“Sit down.” Lincoln says as he looks at you worriedly, and comes to your side to lead you to the couch, as you sit down you see what they were making a big fuss out of. Your wound had reopened. Blood pooled on your t shirt, growing with every moment, until Astrid came back with the first aid kit. “Oh, well look at that.” you say, as you put your fingers to the pool, and bring it up to your face. 

_ You're still in the red dress, your fingers in front of your face covered in blood. The next moments of a blur as you feel something warm and something cold lift you up, and your head is bobbing up and down looking at the stars in the night sky. “The stars,” you whisper as your body continues to bob in those arms. You hear a man, the person carrying you say something, but it seems far away. “It’s okay,” you say back “I knew time would catch up with me.”  The warm arms shift you so your head bops back up and this time settles against his chest, you stare at a metal arm, and you somehow feel safe. _

“Are you okay?” Lincoln asks as Astrid finishes up patching up your shoulder. 

“I have to go.” you say as you stand up and reach for the jacket hanging next to the door.

“Go where?” Lincoln asks, but Astrid places a hand on one of his arms, knowing that you are going alone. 

“I can’t tell you. But thank you both for all that you have done for me.” You say with a slight nod of your head. Lincoln looks at you with forlorn, and you feel something inside. Someone else has looked at you liked that before. The man. The man with the metal arm, he’s looked at you like this before. 

You look back at Lincoln, and walk over and give him a hug. “Thank you.” you say softly again, as he wraps his arms around you and embraces you tenderly. Both Astrid and Lincoln don’t say anything anymore, they just nod as they accept you leaving. As you make your way away from his apartment and begin to look for your way downtown, you can’t help but think about how trusting they were of you in such a short amount of time. When you find an alleyway far from them, and where no one was around. You finally get the reason why you hugged him out of your jacket pocket. You check his pistol to see how much ammo is in it. Like a good agent, there was a full clip, you put the safety on and put it back into your jacket. “A little too trusting.” you say to yourself, and you continue on your path. 

You had to go to where these thoughts were taking you. You felt a pull in the depth of your stomach. Something was telling you that this is where you had to go. And that’s where you were going to go. 

\---------

You stood in the center of the apartment from your thoughts, staring at the dark stain the carpet underneath your feet. Was that real? Was it the one from your ‘memories’? The apartment was a mess, things laid skewed and broken. To your right was a room that was ridden with broken computer and bullet holes. To your left, was a wide broken window, that overlooked the city. The carpet near it was molded and stank of moisture from the recent rains.  Uncertain of why you were really here, you began to look around. If you can’t stop having flashes of being here, maybe this is where you were supposed to be. 

As you began to make your way into the kitchen area, a voice spoke behind you. In a quick swift movement you removed the gun from your jacket, removed the safety and lifted it in front of you, as you turned around. In front of you stood a tall man with long jet black hair and piercing blue eyes, that gives you a chill up your spine. 

“I know you have questions,” he says as he lifts his hands up, a scepter stuck to one. “And I can help answer them for you. I can help you get your son back.” his voice soothes you. It creates some kind of warmth in you, especially the promise that this person could help you get JJ back. 

“What would I have to do?” You ask skeptical, knowing that everything in this world comes with a prize.

“Nothing that you don’t already want.” he says with a smile beginning to spread from ear to ear, his empty hand reaches out and lowers your gun, then leaves his hand outstretched for you to take. “Revenge on those who did this to you. To your son. I know you want to be normal again, get your memories back, I can help you with that.” 

You can’t help but be enticed by it, get your memories back. That’s what you wanted. To remember. Right now you were just a cloud of things you thought you knew, or didn’t know if they were made up.  You didn't know who you were any more. But anything was better than what you were going through right now.  And JJ, what good could you be to him if you didn’t know who you were, what you running from, and where he was? 

So you swallowed hard, and with a slight nod of your head, he smiled and raised the scepter up in the air. “Now might sting a bit” he smiled and brought it down to your chest. 

A stinging filled your body as things rushed in your head. And the last thing you remembered was a cloud of blackness surrounding you slowly. 


	17. Truth and Chaos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone who keeps reading this story even with how many few updates I have. Sorry.  
> You can always bug me at sketchbookthingz.tumblr.com for updates or what I'm doing.  
> As always let me know what you think =) And again thank you 
> 
> <3 SBT

You knew the truth now. 

Or rather the truth that Loki had given you. The sick avengers, the damned mutants, they had taken you as part of an experiment. To make more of them. They succeeded in turning you into one, so they choose to bred with you. You even had that horrible scene of that metal armed man taking you in a locker room against your will, as a redhair woman tried to defend you but failed as well.

He told you the whole truth. You were just an experiment to them. You were just caught in the crossfire, a gun for hire that they thought no one would care about and they could write off. But they were about to find out how wrong they were.

Loki helped you understand, and now it was time to seek your revenge and get JJ back. Loki and Zaran briefed you on everything in the tower. Who was who, where was what. You were going back into the tower and you were going to tear them apart. Loki explained to you the only reason Zaran had been tracking you and trying to get you back was to help you with your memories, but the Avengers had interfered so many times that they were unable to come to your aid sooner.Loki even helped teach you how to control what they did to you, a force field, he called it. 

It didn’t matter if a little voice in the back of your head said that any of this was wrong, this was your truth. Loki had managed to make the clouding in your thoughts disappear and be replaced with what really happened. He told you the only reason the deprivation tank did not work was because your suspicions were true, the freaks had used someone to plant memories in your head, and that’s why you couldn’t get a hold of everything that had happened. But no matter, Loki was here now and he was helping you. You were one step closer to JJ, and he let you know, they had him. They were successful in procreating with you, and they were keeping JJ locked up. 

But now, you were going to get him back, and kill anyone in your way. 

\---

The team was assembling, the last intel that they had was that someone had seen you with a strange man just before disappearing. Everyone took the wild guess that you were last seen with Loki, and tempers were running high. There was no holding back now, whether or not you used to be one of them, it was no longer an issue. You were with Loki and no chances would be taken. 

Havok still tried hard to convince everyone that you were not conspiring with Loki. He wanted to remind everyone that when you had left the tower, you didn’t even remember who you were. There was no telling what Loki could have done to you. But no one would listen. No one but Bucky. They had formed a bond in trying to get you back. Havok covered for him while he was out chasing leads, and keeping him updated whenever the team got a lead. As everyone began to suit up for the mission of finding you, Havok began to hunt for Bucky through the tower and finally found him in on the second floor about to head up and inform Havok that he had come up short again.  

“Bucky, we have to-” Havok began but before he could finish an explosion cut him short. The floor rumbled and both Havok and Bucky ran towards the stairs. They had to find what was the source of this. When they reached the first floor they were greeted by people running around in a panic trying to find their way out of the building. Another explosion rocked the building, and they quickened their pace. 

Once in the lobby they were caught up in the chaos of people running around, yelling trying to find their way out. Quickly the two tried their best to get everyone out.

“Where’s Stark.” Bucky muttered as he looked around angrily as he carried another wounded civilian to a nearby EMT. Ambulances, police and people trying to help each other littered the first floor. 

“Bucky!” Havok called out, as Bucky set the civilian down, he turned around and saw Havok running from a few feet beside him at the front entrance, to the back of the lobby where the elevators were. Bucky looked at the elevators, as the door closed he saw you. It was a brief moment but it was enough for him to see you. Your hair looked longer, your face was a blank expression, you had a gun in each hand, and your eyes were ice blue. 

He ran and caught up with Havok, together they ran up the stairs stopping at an occasional floor to check the elevator to see if it had stopped or continued. They finally deduced that you wouldn’t stop until you had reached Stark, and ran straight to his floor. Once there they saw that they were right. You were running towards the helipad outside as Tony sent a blast from the palm of his hand, you just rolled on the floor to the left and ducked behind some debris that had fallen from the floors above. 

“NO!” Bucky yelled as he began to run after you, but everyone was busy as Zaran’s henchmen filled the room and began to attack the Avengers. Havok and Bucky got caught in the fight as well and lost track of you. As Bucky took down a henchmen he saw two things happening. 

One you fighting with Natasha, but you were using her moves back against her. You were at a stalemate, whatever one did the other could counteract. You had remembered the training. But then Natasha managed to hit you on the head, causing you to stagger back. 

Two, Rogers was charging quickly towards you two.

Bucky quickly began to make his way over to you, but Havok beat him to you.

\-- 

Nothing. You remembered nothing as the woman with red hair hit you hard on the head and knocked you conscious. You looked around in confusion, this place, it was familiar and inside you felt sad, the destruction of this place was something that you were causing. And sadness filled you, the word ‘home’ came into mind. Your home was being destroyed. And then memories began to fill you. Painfully.

The red haired woman took your moment of confusion to land another punch at you, you fell to the floor, and you began to scramble back as you saw both her, Natasha, that was her name, and Captain America charging at you. Scrambling to get up, you took a defensive stand and braced yourself for what was to come, but then someone in black and blue stood in front of you. “No!” they yelled as a beam blasted out of their chest. 

Rogers, that’s what you would call him, took his shield and covered himself and Natasha from the blast, you put your hands up and turned your head back to keep from looking at the blinding light. Something about this seems all too familiar to you. What was happening? You thought Loki had made everything better showed you what you had forgotten, but here you were confused again. Wait, Loki? What had happened? You last remembered him promising that everything would be better, taking his scepter and putting it up to your chest. Now, you were here. Why did they seem familiar, why was this man attacking his own to save you? Because they were your friends and family.

Wait, Loki? Why would you help Loki? Two different truths began to fight inside you, but right now you had to concentrate on the task at hand. 

Once the blast died down, you looked back to see the man had turned around and his hands were on your shoulders. “Hey, are you okay?” he said in a soft caring tone. 

“Alex?” you asked surprised, that suit, you’ve seen it before. This conversation, you’ve had it before. What was he doing here, why was he like that? Why was he wearing this? He was a mutant, and  He smiled at you, “There you are.” he said softly and brought you against him in a warm embrace. What was going on? “Come on I have to get you out of here.” 

“But,” you said as you looked around. “What am I doing here.” How did you get here? Why were you here? So many questions and memories were flooding your head all at once.  

A whooshing sound cut through it all, Havok and you turned around in time to see Roger's shield hurling through the air heading straight for both of you. Havok turned and held you against him using his body as a shield for you about to take the brunt of the object to leave you untouched. You wrapped your arms around your old friend, and you both braced for the impact and instead heard a hard metal thunk. 

You both turned around to see the man with the metal arm, Bucky, standing between you two and Natasha and Rogers. The shield in his grip, he held onto it for another second before throwing it back at the masked man, who dodged it and the shield became imbedded into the concrete wall behind him. Nat. That’s what you would call her.

Loki, anger seethed through you he used you. Emotions and memories swirled through you. You began to feel sick to your stomach as you began to remember the whole moment, it wasn’t Bucky in the locker room, it was him. It was Loki. This was all one long sick drawn out plan.

“We have to go.” Bucky said as he turned around, Alex nodded at him as he held onto your left arm, and Bucky took your right arm. They were about to drag you back in when you put all your weight down and broke out of their grips.If this was Loki’s plan all along, that meant that JJ was not here as he had told you. JJ was his prisoner, and you would have to complete this mission if you had any hope of  ever getting your son back. 

“No!” You screamed at them. “This is the only way to get my son back.” Yanking your arms out of their grasps, you took the guns hidden in the back waistline of your pants. “I'm sorry but I have to kill them to get my son back.” With that you ran at full speed back out to the helipad where Iron Man, Tony, stood currently battling some of Zaran’s henchmen.  Everyone was too busy fighting for their lives, it seemed like the henchmen just never stopped or kept coming, and didn't see you making your way through the chaos to Tony. 

Just as you got within range, you raised your arm and lined up your gun with Tony in its sight. The man who took you in and funded everything in this tower. Who tried to help you.

You shook your head, this is the only way. JJ is somewhere without you and Loki had the answer, you had to detach yourself from these memories, from these feelings. Bucky stood in front of you.”I can't let you do that baby.” He said softly standing in front of you. 

“Get out of my way! I'm not here for you.” You said through gritted teeth as you turned the safety off and put your finger on the trigger.

“The only way you're getting Tony is through me.” 

Just then to your right Loki materialised on a pile of debris, a smile on his face looking over his handy work. Then his eyes landed on you and Bucky, he saw your hesitation and knew that the spell he had placed on you had been broken. "Do it!" Loki hissed at you as your right hand trembled, the hand that held the gun pointed at Bucky's chest. Tears stung your eyes, as you finally began to remember every moment you’ve had with the man standing in front of you with the metal arm. It took you months, but you remember him now. Those eyes, the way he said baby, the way his hair fell in front of his face. It brought back memories and your head couldn't take it right now.  But you remember that you love him and that you guys led a life together. 

"Do it or you'll never see J.J. again," Loki hisses at you again. You're tears are replaced with rage now, not only were you used to bring down people that you had concerned your friends. But now you knew the truth, he held your son and you were at his mercy.    
"I said I'd fucking do it," you growl as you cock the gun and take a deep breath. "So I'm going to fucking do it."    
As you squeeze the trigger you just hear Bucky say, "It's okay, I understand."   
Then, he hit the ground. 

Everyone turned round and saw Bucky on the ground, you turned around and aimed the gun at Loki. “Where’s my son.” you demand through grated teeth and tear filled eyes. The henchmen seem to just disappear as Loki glowers at you with anger. “I’m only going to ask you one more time.” you said as you readied the gun and made sure that it was lined up with his head. As you did all the Avengers charged for you, for Bucky. But they were met with an invisible wall between you two. 

“The deal was go after Stark and get your son back, this,” he said pointing to Bucky on the ground behind you. “Is not.” And with that he was gone into thin air. Vanished as quickly as he appeared. 

“NO!!” you yelled in frustration as you shot off all the rounds in the gun in vain at the air where he had stood a moment earlier. “NO!” you said weakly as you finally let yourself fall to your knees and cry. The only sound now was the sound of the Avengers trying to break through your force field. Your invisible wall that you remembered you were born with, the one that Loki tapped into and helped you learn how to control it. The invisible wall that had been a part of you, the reason the people you considered your parents died. 

All the sudden everyone quieted down, the only sound that could be heard was your sobbing. As you shook uncontrollably from your cries, a hand came down onto your shoulder. Your hand automatically came up to it for comfort, and the familiarity that the cold metal used to bring to you came rushing back, and you cried harder.

What no one saw was that you had learned how to control your field more than thought imaginable, and even were able to project fields. You projected one at the last minute around Bucky, causing him to fall and be stunned by the impact of the bullet, but the bullet had not reached him physically. He was fine. He walked around you and fell to his knees in front of you and with his hands on your face, you cried. “I lost him. I lost him forever.”    
“We’ll get him back, together this time. Okay.” He pulled you against him as you continued to cry and ran his hands through your hair, with that you let the force field come down. But no one made a move, you were doing something no one had ever seen you do. Cry. 

But you don’t care. Come whatever the Avengers were going to do to you, it was what you deserved. You lost your son, tried to destroy the Avenger and now you were going to suffer the consequences. 


	18. Free?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi sorry for the long wait for this short ass chapter. I have another chapter I am finishing up and will have it out by this weekend.  
> I do want your feedback, I was planning on doing a chapter from Bucky's POV.  
> Let me know if you would like that or hate that, comment or send me a message at  
> sketchbookthingz.tumblr.com

 

Haziness and a sour stomach was all you felt as you began to awaken from your stupor. Thoughts swirl through your head, two different versions of your life trying to fit inside of you, both of them claiming to be right.

_They’re your friends, practically family. You’ve lived here for years._

_NO THEY ARE NOT! THEY VIOLATED YOU! YOU’RE JUST A PAWN IN THEIR GAMES._

_You’re son, he was going to grow up here._ _  
_ _THE SON THEY FORCED ON YOU! ONE YOU NEVER PLANNED ON HAVING, A TWISTED SCIENCE EXPERIMENT ON YOU_

_James. His name is James. So is your sons._

_LIES! LIES! ALL LIES FORCED ON YOU TO STAY! ALL FORCING YOU TO BE ONE OF THEM_

_No, you have powers. You are one of them. Your parents protected you from them to avoid pain. But now you can grow into them._

_MORE LIES! THEY DID THIS TO YOU._

“No!”  you yell you yank on the chains that imprison you in your cell.

As soon as your field went down, Tony stuck a needle in your neck, and you awoke here. Thrashing like an animal, that was how you spent the hours, or days, if it was even that long. How long had you been here?  Your wrist ached from the cuffs as the scars began to heal. Seeing as you were a threat now, having almost successfully killing Iron Man and destroying the tower, you were locked in a cell with nothing but the cuffs around your wrist attached to the chains, which seemed to be molted into the wall and refused to give.

The redness from the dried blood you created yourself by trying to break the cuffs off, began to scab and chaff, a sensation that was driving you mad. You tried so hard to get out but the cuffs were on too tight and the chains were taut. Breaking your thumbs to slide out had crossed your mind, but you couldn't even fit a your pinky between your wrist and the cuffs. Frustrated you tried to yank at the chains any way you could, almost dislocating your shoulders, you needed to be out there looking for JJ.

But here you were. Locked in a basement somewhere, your penance for trying to destroy them. A memory that felt like a dream, not an actual memory of something that you had done. Memories swirled through your head confusing you, you no longer remembered who you were or what you were, who you were to the people upstairs and who they were to you were lost. What truth Loki had given you had muddled things and you didn’t know what was real or fake any more. Just that JJ was the only thing that was real and the only thing that mattered, and you needed to get out of here to find him.  

Mustering up some more strength you began to to pull on the chains again. Screaming out until your lungs seemed to collapse. Until your wrist could bleed no more. Until your arms could not yank on the chains any more.  When you finally felt defeat coming, you held it back, you would not let them know that they had bested you, nor would you cry again. You hung your head as you stood against the back wall, you needed to regain energy again. You’ve been able to get out of any situation before, you would figure this out.

You had to.

JJ was still out there.

As you gathered all your strength again you took a deep breath, you were going to give another yank to the chains, when the door to your cage opened.  There stood the half of the duo that had recruited you into this nightmare, or kidnapped you into this, which was it?

“You ready?” He asked in his gruff voice, being surrounded by nothing but your own screams, it now felt like nails on a chalkboard.

“For what?” You huffed back through a sore and hoarse throat.

“To get those chains off of you.” He steps into your prison and looks at you square in the eye.

You let out a hoarse laugh and push yourself off the wall, the chains clinking before they tighten their grip on you.”What? Do you all have a death wish all the sudden?”

“No,” he said as he took a step closer, reaching into a pocket and taking out the key to the shackles on you. “We want to help you.”

You laughed. “How long have I been here?”

“A week.”

“A WEEK?!!?” You yell as you tug on the chains again, furious. JJ was out there needing you, for a week. And you were trapped here.

“We’ve been doing all we can to find JJ. But we wanted to let in you the loop so you know what is going on. He is your son.”

“You should’ve done this sooner.” You growl at the man.

“Hey,” he said with hurt lacing his words but his face remained stone. “I know what it's like to have your head messed with. And I made a case in support of you coming out of this cage, it took a week to convince everyone, but it worked. Now do you wanna be free?”

Free. That word haunted you. Were you free anytime in your life? Holding back your tongue, you simply nodded at the man, it was better to play nice with the key keeper then continue your fruitless efforts. You began to calculate your plan. You would go into the hall with him, attack him from behind, take that bow he had along with an arrow or two, until you found a better weapon. Sure, your skills were rusty, but in your muddled memories something was telling you how to use it. Dropping your arms down to your side, your shoulders began to let the soreness set it.

“Come on,” he said standing behind you, shoulders at the ready. “It’s to the right and down the hall.”

You didn’t know what say, simply put a hand out and said, “Lead the way.”

He let a chuckle out, “I said I trusted you, not that I was stupid.” the bow carrying man said as he nodded towards the door. Your eyes narrowed at him, how did he know. “I’ve trained with you enough to know that you’d attack me from behind, so let's go. Take a right.”

Accepting your defeat for the moment you took his directions and walked out of your prison.


	19. Confusion

I stood in the conference room with everyone else, waiting. Clint had finally convinced them to let her out. I needed her out, but no one would listen to Havoc or me. Clint after watching the video realized what was done to him by Loki was done to her, was able to convince them to give her a chance.  Everyone was on edge as Clint left with the  key to release her. 

“Are we sure about this?” Natasha spoke up again as she paced near the door. 

“No.” Tony replied as far from the door as he could. 

Everyone stood as they heard steps approaching. I stood up straight,bracing myself for what would come, what could come.  Who would come? Who would she be when she walked through that door? Would she remember me? Would she try to kill us again? 

They had not allowed me to see her or talk to her, they didn't think it best. Thought that I would just aid her escape from here. Now as the door opened, I held my breathe, it was all I could do from running to the door and taking her away. It is so strange to think that after all this time, she could still make me feel this way. Doubt my need to be alone, and want to have her near me. Steve could tell my anticipation and stood next to me as she walked in with Clint. Her hair was long, knotted, tangled, dirty, some in her face. Her wrist were red, chapped and scabbed over. 

She was thinner too. Her cheekbones were almost peeked out from their hiding places, but even then she lifted her head up and held her chin up. Not wanting to show any kind of weakness in front of anyone. Natasha was the first to address her.

“Aspis.” She simply said as she took a step forward towards her. She just nodded in response. In the next half hour, she stood silent as Stark ran through all the information we had gathered. Where JJ could possibly be, where Loki could possibly be, and how to get there. What to expect and what the plan of attack was. Once he was done, she finally spoke, “Okay, when do we leave?” she asked from where she stood. 

The entire time I could see the old her, still as a statue, assessing her surroundings looking for her way out, for weak spots, face emotionless, that was until Stark said, “Oh we leave tonight, you sweetheart go back to your room.” 

“Like hell I will!” she said as she turned around ready to make her exit, when Friday closed down the room. 

“You are a liability, you are lucky you are even standing here.” Stark retorted. 

“You can’t keep me from getting my son.” she said through gritted teeth, fist at her side, feet planted down, ready for a fight. 

“Like hell, I can’t.” Tony said as he turned around about to give someone some kind of command, but she reached out quickly punching her fist through the metal at his neck and yanking on the cables that she found there, having his suit frizz on him, as Natasha ran to attack, she raised her hand up in her direction and Natasha was met with the invisible force field that knocked her back. 

Behind her Clint simply said softly. “This isn’t going to get JJ back, you need to let them go.” 

“Shut up, Clint!” She snapped at him, and then her eyes widened as she stared at her hand. Wires popping out in between her fingers, blood beginning to trickle down her wrist, but it wasn’t that it surprised her. Her eyes flicked up to Natasha. And knew that look well. 

  
She was remembering. 


	20. Recognition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for all of you who follow this story and awaited chapters for the last year, only to be disappointed that I never posted.  
> I made it my goal for 4/2017 to finish this story. And I will. 
> 
> You can bug me and make sure that I stick to this resolution over at sketchbookthingz.tumblr.com, or just follow me and my obsession of Sebby. 
> 
> either way. I would enjoy the company. This first entry to the end of this story is a bit short, but its a start to how I want to end this story. This buckle up. And again thanks for being here.

The recognition caught you off guard. Everyone could see the look in your eyes, you were remembering things slowly but surely. Clint. His name was Clint. You got along with him so well. Him and Natasha. You looked at the woman standing in front of you. Her eyes and yours met, and she could see the bewildered look in your eye. How did you keep her at bay, why were you fighting with them? Your powers, you have powers? Memories and feelings were fighting inside of you and you had no idea what to do. Were these memories planted? But then what about the experiments? Which were the lies? Two set of memories were fighting in your head and you didn’t know which to give in to. You needed JJ back.

Natasha could see what was happening, having been played with by Wanda, and Clint knew it too, that’s why they stayed by your side. Slowly, you brought your left hand down to let Natasha in. Clint stood beside you as he put his hand around yours, and slowly helped you let go of the wiring in Tony’s suit. Your hand let go of the cables one by one, blood dripping from your open wound, electric impulses reminding you that this was not a dream. Or some nightmare. You were here. And you had always belonged here. 

“Take her back to her room.” Tony demanded as he tried to get out of his now damaged suit, but neither assassin lifted a hand.  You stood there gazing into space as things flooded to you quickly and harshly. You’ve been in this room before. You’ve yelled at Tony before, you’ve been hurt in this room before. Steve, you had broken Steve's nose in this room.  Too many things, too quick.

Your hands quickly went up to your head as you shut your eyes, but that made them more vivid. Clint wrapped his hand around your arm making you open your eyes, you tried to pull away but saw that he was trying to clamp a piece of cloth around you open wound. “I’m so sorry.” you automatically said as you looked at him.

He gave you a crooked smile, “I’m not letting you off the hook that easy.” You scoffed as you let a laugh that turned into tears out as he wrapped your wrist in that makeshift bandage. Steve was the first to come up to you. He looked at you square in the eye, and you braced yourself for a moment, waiting for punch, a slap some sort of punishment. But in front of everyone, he put his hands on your shoulders, and then pulled you into an embrace.

“You’re just going to welcome her back, just like that?” Tony said as he put on another suit. “Did you see what she did to my suit! She’s dangerous!”

“Isn’t that why we recruited her?” Natasha quipped as she crossed her arms and stood next to you and Steve.

“But-”

“Shut up Stark. You always did talk too much.” you said as you ripped the bottom of your shirt to clean the blood that was left on your arm. He looked at you dejected.

“I understand that we call have a bond with you, you were here for long time. But I can not let go what you just did.”

"It was my force field. It's what I call it. You made me angry, my force field let me punch through your suit. But because I was angry, I didn’t keep it up, I didn’t control, thus.” You held up your hand. “I am sorry. I still,” you hesitated a bit before stating, “ have things floating in my head, telling me to kill you. Hence the distance.”

After more arguing and debating about what to do next, you couldn’t help but notice that Bucky too had maintained his distance, he didn’t come near you or talk to you. You knew why so you didn’t push it. Everyone else was having a hard enough time welcoming you back, you weren’t going to force him to. Right now you had other things to focus on.

 

The plan to get your son back. 

 


	21. Sure Thing

It took a couple of hours before the team finally banded together and a plan was made. You kept your anger in check, trying not to burn the bridges that were slowly being rebuilt. It took everything in you to not punch Tony in the face and just take off in a jet to get JJ. But they were all right, if you wanted to get him back, it would have to be done together as a team. If you tried to do this solo, it just wouldn’t work. You had to for once, depend on others. 

Everyone began to gather what they would need for the mission and were to meet at the jet. You didn’t want to waste any more time, so you paced in front of the loading bay waiting for everyone else. That's when you saw him, he was in his black gear, this time he wore a jacket with the sleeve ripped off, so you see the lights gleam off his metal arm. His face was neutral, it wasn’t angry, mad, or happy. It was just neutral. He was battle ready. 

You were planning on talking to him, apologizing, or maybe even just a real heart to heart about everything. You just wanted to talk to the man who you were in love with, who had loved you. These memories were real and you knew it from the way your heart thumped in your chest as he neared, but you still didn’t know what that meant in this moment, or what it would mean in the moments that followed. But you couldn’t. What words would you say? Sorry? What kind of an apology is that? What kind of a conversation starter is that? Did you really want to talk to him about this before the mission? 

No. 

You just stood there as he walked past you and into the jet. From where you stood you could hear him strapping his things in, getting ready for the ride. Let him concentrate, you convinced yourself to let things go for now.

\---

He could tell that you wanted to tell him something, but you didn’t make a move. He walked right past you and you didn’t say a single thing. As he began to get his things ready for the flight, he began to argue with himself. 

He wanted to give you the space to figure things out yourself, but at the same time, he wanted to keep you close and safe. But you never needed anyone to keep you safe. You did that your whole life. But he had followed you across the globe none the less to try to do it. 

Looking back out towards the loading ramp, he saw you pacing back and forth still.

No. 

He thought that he had lost you twice before, he wasn’t going to let it happen one more time. Not while he could still do something about it. 

\----

As you waited for everyone else, you paced to the right again. As you turned around, the light-footed assassin was standing in front of you. You looked into his eyes and forgot what you had wanted to tell him. The memories of him being this close to him invaded your thoughts and your hands wanted to do other things. 

He could see the recognition in your eyes, the way you searched his to see if it really was true. 

His metal hand reached out and held your hand in it. “I know things aren’t clear to you right now but know one thing,” he took a step closer to you, forcing you to look up into his eyes. “I will get him back. If it’s the last thing I do.” 

  
You simply nodded in response and as he took a step back, you reached out, grabbed his shirt and pulled him against you as you crashed your lips against his. Because right now the only you were sure of, was him. 


End file.
